Deathless
by phoenixyfriend
Summary: Mortality is for losers. So is time as a linear concept. In other words, the entire planet is dead, Sakura is over five hundred years old, and she's bored as hell. Time-travel is clearly the only option.
1. Introducing

**A/N:** **This is a story where Sakura is unapologetically overpowered and doesn't give a shit. If you don't think you can handle that, it may be time to switch to a different fic.**

o.o.o.o.o

Haruno Sakura, on the day she travelled back in time, was over five hundred years old, and the Jinchuuriki for all nine bijuu. Both circumstances had happened as the culmination of an unlikely series of events, and she had outlived the rest of the planet by… a very wide margin.

All that was left of the sentient species was her, the Bijuu, the omnipresent Zetsu clones (for a given value of sentient), and a handful of summons.

And Sakura?

Sakura was _bored._

o.o.o.o.o

Sakura wakes up in the middle of the Land of Earth, perhaps thirty miles from Iwagakure. She stands up, looks at it, and thinks to herself _wow, I forgot that cities could be big even without skyscrapers._

The Land of Earth has always been special, in that the land is frequently little more than massive slabs of rock. _Badlands_ , they call it. Unlike the Land of Wind's ever-shifting sands and Fire's moist soil, the land of Earth has surfaces that are optimal for the drawing of large seals, and it doesn't rain enough to wash things away like in the Land of Water.

(Lightning is mostly mountain country and covered in so many different climates that Sakura gave up on it centuries ago. Or maybe centuries from now? Strange.)

She feels hollow, and realizes after a few seconds that it's because the bijuu she's collected are _gone._ That's… that's fair, probably. They aren't physical beings like her, but chakra constructs with strange metaphysical properties that don't let them exist twice over like she can. Splitting them, sure, she's known that since she was sixteen, but doubling is… well, empirical evidence suggests that it's not really a possibility.

Shame, really. They were her only constant company after Orochimaru kicked the bucket, save for… well.

(She had a feeling he'd _let_ himself die from boredom, which, okay, _rude_. Sakura was plenty interesting! It didn't matter if the rest of the planet was dead from the horrific post-apocalyptic wasteland that was their lives!)

The rest of Sakura's seals seem to be fine, though. She can sense that they're still full of weapons and other fun little tidbits that she didn't want to leave behind.

She sets a course for Konoha that very night.

o.o.o.o.o

Sakura has a lot of 'fun little tidbits.' Really. A lot.

Like Orochimaru's brain.

It's… okay, so it's not _totally_ ethical, but to be fair, Sakura and Orochimaru had been stealth-experimenting on each other for centuries by the time Orochimaru died. Posthumously grabbing his brain and using a stolen Yamanaka technique to copy all the memories out into a seal so she could give them back to him as soon as she found him in her new present wasn't really all that weird and _don't look at her like that it's practically nice for them okay?_

(It's not like the Yamanaka mind that she's stolen their technique for this. They're all two centuries dead by the time she does it anyway.)

(Actually, no, they did mind when she did it, but that was because most of them still had 'opinions' on Edo Tensei.)

( _"What do you mean you brought me back from the dead for this?"_ )

( _"Relax, it's fine, and you already have the techniques for it, even! Just tell me how to do it!_ ")

( _"You used Edo Tensei! You sacrificed someone just so you could learn a technique!"_ )

(" _I used fucking Zetsu clones! It's not like they're real people!"_ )

(Whatever. Ino got over it.)

She may also have Orochimaru's actual dead body in a seal somewhere, because he's probably going to want it as soon as he remembers the future that isn't, because he's fun like that.

And also a few other brains and memories tucked away in various seals, mostly by virtue of Edo Tensei, after she figured out how to mix the two techniques. There were plenty of Zetsu clones running around with nothing to do; catching a few sacrifices had been child's play, at best.

People got so _mad_ when she brought them back with Edo Tensei. She'd eventually stopped just because they'd either immediately attack her for violating the sanctity of death ( _pffft_ ) or she'd have to use the mind control kunai, which just made them boring. Like, come on, she wasn't even sacrificing real people! They were basically hive mind plant clones, they really didn't count.

"I was the best ninja on the planet, by virtue of being the only one left." She mutters to herself, because it's true and she needs to hear herself say it. Oh, she was one of the best even when the competition had been a lot larger, but the people who lived longest were the people who were the strongest, and there was always someone better, until she was the only one left.

And now she's back when it all began, because the future is boring as shit and when you're known as "Sakura the Deathless," you don't get a choice as to whether you can just let nature take its course and kill you so you can join everyone else on the other side. You're stuck there, immortal, with no one but some bijuu and summons for company, which, while interesting in their own way, are a very limited group, especially given how rarely she actually saw the summons.

The Zetsu clones are a hive mind and don't count, no matter how many of them there are.

"And now I'm the best ninja on the planet by virtue of having five centuries of experience and being _fucking awesome_." She hisses to herself, grinning. The Konoha Chuunin Exams start in three months, and she is going to crash that party like a boss, find her jackass of a friend, and skip out to go wreak havoc now that there are people again.

o.o.o.o.o

Sakura knows that she doesn't look a lot like a ninja. She looks like she's in her late twenties, maybe, though it's that vaguely youthful but mostly ageless look that Tsunade had about her, where you were surprised when she told you she was fifty-something, but when asked how old you thought she _actually_ was, couldn't figure out a number to put to it.

So yeah, Sakura looks young. Her muscles are hidden under loose, wispy white clothing that no ninja would wear as anything but a disguise, unless they were completely and utterly convinced of their own superiority even in such dangerous cloths. And her hair and eyes, so pastel-pale and downright adorable (or so she's been told), make everyone underestimate her, even if she goes with a low ponytail instead of the traditional cutesy pigtails. She even carries a pretty pink parasol, all lacy and delicate, and no luggage whatsoever, because who needs a bag when one's entire body is covered in seals?

(Okay, so the wispy white clothing is also so that she doesn't overheat while still covering up all her storage seal tattoos. There's a lot of them, and they're really obvious.)

She sneaks into Otogakure before she does anything about Konoha. Getting past the guards is easy, which… yeah, okay, she'd had five hundred years to practice. They've had maybe five or ten, given that most of them are teenagers. She can let them off with a warning. Or five.

Sticky-note messages are fun.

Sakura manages to sneak into Orochimaru's private office, and she thinks she can hear him rummaging about in his bedroom, just past the second door; the privacy seals are very good, but Sakura is better. She sits down behind his desk, kicks up her leather boots onto the mahogany, and laces her hands together behind her head, the very picture of irreverence. The fact that this position makes her gauzy white outfit slide back and expose her extensive seal tattoos is really just a plus.

Orochimaru comes out of his room, scroll in his hands, and stops in the doorway as he spots her. Sakura grins.

"'Sup?"

The man raises an eyebrow. "Come again?"

"Oh, I'd _love_ to." Sakura purrs, because she's gotten used to responding a certain way to certain things, okay. Orochimaru does _not_ say 'I'm sorry' or 'excuse me' when he needs someone to explain themselves, because that puts the blame on him or some other such nonsense. Sakura never really got it, but she knows that he will always either demand a repetition, or say the above. Since Sakura is a completely stranger that has made it into an office and past all his adorable little guards, she's painted herself as a possible threat, even though he's probably already dismissing her a bit. He's got a very high opinion of himself, and it's usually quite warranted, but Sakura is just… _better_.

Than _everyone_.

 _To a hilarious degree_.

He doesn't really respond to her pervy joke, though. His eyebrow just hikes up a little closer to his hairline, and he crosses his arms. If Sakura knows him at all (and after a good four and change centuries of companionship, she _does_ ), he's doing it in case he needs to hide hand signs from her when he attacks.

"I asked you what's up? How's it hanging? _How are you, you glorious fuckwad?_ " Okay, so she's messing with him a bit, but watching this Orochimaru try to hide his growing confusion and, more importantly, his growing _anger_ at her words is hilarious.

"I was doing quite well until you decided to enter my private area and insult me. Who are you, and why are you here?" He asks, shifting his weight to one leg. Sakura eyes the ridiculous clothing he's wearing and wishes she could talk him into something a little more stylish; really, he's got the ass for skinny jeans and yet he does _nothing_.

"Well… I got stuck with the name 'Sakura the Deathless' for a while, which was annoying. It sounds stupid, and people kept trying to kill me even though it clearly wasn't going to work. It was right there in the name. Right there. Deathless. I can't die and _still_ they insisted on trying. I got some good fights out of it, though…" She trails off, wondering how long it's going to take for Orochimaru to snap, and—

Oh, hey, she's up against a wall with a sword at her throat. Nice. Good speed, actually, she'd forgotten he was already this fast.

"Your _purpose_ , kunoichi."

"Shinobi." Sakura corrects. "Like, I realize that I'm a girl and all, but kunoichi is really more of a _role_ than a gender thing, yeah? I mean, gender roles are also a thing, but they're total bullshit, and while I can play the role of the kunoichi, I prefer frontline combat so _really_ I'm more of a—"

The knife digs a little deeper into her neck.

"Okay, so like… basically? You're a piece of shit who abandoned me, but I love you, as an awesome friend, so I tracked you down to give you back your brain."

Well, his memories. She'd give him the brain too, of course, but the memories were the important bit.

"…I see." Orochimaru tilts his head to the side and examines her closely. "I do not recognize you, _Sakura_."

"Obviously. There's a reason for it. That said…" Sakura tilts her head to the side as well, and leans forward, the knife digging into her throat a little more. They're close enough to kiss, and if Sakura weren't sure that the Orochimaru she knew would never let her do anything of the sort, she might have closed the distance. "I think I'll wait to give it back, yeah?"

(She's gotten close to the other disturbingly long-lived people in her time alive. On several occasions, before they all died, she tried to seduce some of them. Orochimaru was one of the few that didn't budge. In his eyes, she will forever be too young, because that was how he'd seen her when they'd first met.)

(She doesn't resent him for it.)

(Much.)

(…She's _not_ a child anymore, okay.)

"The brain." Orochimaru says, as though searching for clarification.

"Yeah, the brain."

"A brain that, last I checked, was in my head."

"Well, it's not like you always have the same head," Sakura said, very logically in her opinion. "All that body jumping does leave its mark."

"So you… desecrated the corpse of my original body and brought me the brain from there?" Orochimaru asks, probably thinking that he's figured her out.

"Nah." Sakura leans forward against the sword, and it cuts further into her throat, until more of her neck is cleaved in half than is still attached. "You'll figure it out eventually."

She shunshins out of the way of the sword, coming to a stop on the other side of the desk from Orochimaru, in the middle of the room. He turns slowly, not like he's slow by nature, but like he's confident enough in his own skills, and in the assumption that she won't attack, that he simply doesn't _need_ to act fast.

Which, well, she's not going to attack, but if she did, right now, with any intent of killing him, he would die. Utterly and completely. That was just kind of a given.

She'd helped him perfect all his techniques; she knew the early weaknesses by heart, because she'd been one of the people that helped patch them.

"And how soon is 'eventually,' then?" Orochimaru asks, and then his tongue lolls out further than should be humanly possible, outright slithering through the air to begin curling around her neck, and… and, considering the fact that she _knows_ that tongue is strong enough to strangle a person to death and that that's the threat he's supposedly trying to convey here, Sakura really shouldn't find that quite as hot as she does.

Um.

She tries not to think about that. Down that path lies solely frustration. It always has.

"You should put that away, I'm getting all hot and bothered." She tells him matter-of-factly, eyes focused on the tongue. "Like… putting it away? That's a thing that should happen if you don't want to make this even more awkward than it already is."

The tongue stops the slow undulations that any freely-hanging muscle of the sort would have, freezing right in its tracks, and then slowly slides back into Orochimaru's mouth.

Oh, good. The tongue is gone.

(Sakura had developed some very strange tastes in people over the years, especially as the possibilities dwindled in the face of insurmountable horrors. The apocalypse wasn't supposed to be the place for canoodling, but one could only go so many years without getting used to the atmosphere, to the point where sex didn't seem like a distraction from survival anymore, and by then, the options were so _limited_.)

"So…" Sakura shifts her weight from one leg to the other. "I'll see you soon, yeah?"

She's gone before he can answer.

o.o.o.o.o

Currently, most of the bijuu have hosts. Sakura knows that, in most of these cases, the hosts didn't consent, being children at the time of sealing. However, most of them have grown used enough to the situation and rely so much on the bijuu's powers, or have such a strong sense of duty and obligation, that they would almost universally reject the opportunity to be rid of their demons.

Sakura doesn't begrudge them this. She has no claim to the bijuu at the moment, but if she's not mistaken, Kirigakure is about to have a revolution. Or it may have just had one. She's not super sure about the timing, but she knows the gist of the whole 'control the Sanbi Jinchuuriki/Yondaime Mizukage with Sharingan' plan that Obito was running around now, and she knows the revolution happened after the Wave mission, since Zabuza was there solely to earn the money to fund said revolution.

The point is, the Mizukage won't care much if she messes around with his seal. He won't care much about anything.

Sakura pauses as she alights on a roof at the edge of Kirigakure, gazing up at the Mizukage's tower. It's taller than the Hokage tower, for some reason. If she tries, she can probably see him from here, but she doesn't bother; she can sense Isobu there. She doesn't even know the man's all that well, but she knows that his situation is kind of terrible. And she knows that she can fix it. Obito's Sharingan-based mind control is strong right now, but there are still holes that she can exploit to break it, especially on someone else.

She… should probably avoid changing the timeline overly much this soon. And Mei was _fun_ as Mizukage, so providing an incentive for that to happen was a reason to leave Yagura to his own devices.

But like… guilt.

She'd met the man by way of Edo Tensei, and he'd been fairly nice. Isobu had liked him, too.

And Isobu will probably complain if she _doesn't_ help…

Ugh, fine. She'll do it.

Sakura channels some chakra to her feet, and jumps, flying across half the village in a single bound. She won't lie; the ridiculously high and ridiculously long jumps that she's learned to employ are also ridiculously fun, and she loves them.

Even at midday, the sun in Kirigakure is weak, impeded by the mist and clouds that roll in off the sea. That said, it's still enough for plenty of people to see Sakura crash through the Mizukage's roof like a bright, pink-and-white-and-brown meteor.

She lands on the floor of Mizukage's main office in a shower of dust and rubble from the ceiling. She feels at least two people try to attack her without hesitation, and grabs them before they made it to her, flinging them away from her and into the walls.

Or through the walls, she thinks, as she hears the walls crack and something vaguely human-sized start falling through the air outside the building. Through the walls works too.

"Yo," She says as she turns to face Yagura. "I'm gonna punch you in the face and break the wacky eye stuff that's brainwashing you, m'kay?"

Yagura's answer takes the form of an outpouring of Sanbi chakra, corrosive and oppressive, and Sakura would probably be at least a little intimidated if she were actually the age she appeared. Just a little, though; she'd already been S-rank for a decade by the time she hit her late twenties.

That said, she has literally no fear of Yagura as he is now. The most troublesome thing he could do, to borrow Shikamaru's phrasing, was set a bounty on her head, which he probably won't do once she actually follows through on her promise.

An incorporeal seal builds up on her knuckles, and Sakura charges past the Mizukage's guard and into the chakra that even now is trying to grab and destroy her.

"Time to wake up!" She shouts as her fist does indeed crash into Yagura's face… blasting him through the wall, just like his unfortunate subordinate from before.

"Ah, dammit." Sakura peers out the hole in the wall, ignoring the people trying to attack her from behind now. "I hope I didn't kill him."

She leans back around and focuses on a familiar face. "What do you think, Ao?"

The man's visible eye narrows. "How do you know my name?"

"I know _lots_ of things." Sakura informs him. "I'm going to go check on your boss and hope that the stuff Tobi was doing to him is gone now. I haven't actually used that seal before. It's _kind of_ experimental."

A muscle in Ao's cheek is twitching, a lot. "And what, exactly, has this 'Tobi' been doing to Mizukage-sama?"

"Mind control, mostly." Sakura says with the air of someone very, very distracted from whatever is supposed to be going on right now. "You know, just all the stuff responsible for your village become such a shitshow."

One of the men in the room lunges to try and kill her, at that, and she grabs his sword (ooooh, nice metalwork) as he slashes down at her, palm catching the blade and fingers curling around the flat of it. It digs into her skin, drawing blood, but doesn't get nearly as far as the wielder probably intended. Sakura gives him a pitying look.

"Dude, I literally just took out the strongest ninja in your village with a single punch. _What makes you think you stand a chance?"_

"I don't," the man grunts, still putting all his strength behind his blade, "But I will defend Kirigakure from her enemies, even when the odds are insurmountable."

Sakura blinks at him. "Huh," she hums a little as she kicks him ( _softly, softly_ ) away from her, and nods as she turns back to the Yagura-shaped hole in the wall. "I like you, man. I'm not an enemy of Kirigakure, though. Just like, FYI and all that."

She jumps out the window without any further talk, and lands next to Yagura's body. He's groaning, which means he's alive, at least.

"So, how are you feeling?" She asks sweetly. She also nudges him with the toes of her boot, not so sweetly.

"Like I got punched through a wall by a woman with as much strength as Senju Tsunade." Yagura mutters, levering himself up onto his elbows. He turns a wary glare at Sakura. "Isobu… he knows you."

"I know," Sakura says with a grin. "Mind if I get him out for a bit?"

Yagura stiffens. "That would kill me."

"Oh, I won't remove the chakra," Sakura assures him, "Not more than a tiny fraction. Like, you'd _maybe_ need to eat an apple to recover from it, since your reserves are S-rank. Just enough for a few Kage Bunshin, basically. It's mostly just the psyche I'm removing."

Yagura raises an eyebrow. "Do I have a choice?"

"I mean… not really, no, but it's still polite for me to ask first." Sakura shrugs. "If I may?"

"I don't believe I could stop you if I tried, going by what Isobu is telling me." Yagura says, dropping his head back down into the rubble. "By the Sage, what have I been doing these past few years…"

"Following Tobi's orders, mostly." Sakura says, pulling another seal into existence at the tip of her finger. The back of her mind registers the arrival of several more shinobi. She moves from crouching to seated next to Yagura. "Given how much people hate you now, since they didn't know about the mind control, you're probably best off just abdicating and handing the hat over to Mei or something."

"Terumi?" Yagura asks, not raising his head. He actually sounds like he's considering it. "She wouldn't do badly."

"She'd be fucking _fantastic_ ," Sakura informs him. "Like, really. I've seen it, Isobu probably told you."

"I believe you." Yagura mutters, "The damage control is going to be phenomenally difficult, isn't it?"

Sakura shrugs and presses the seal she's built up down onto Yagura's chest, which draws out a grunt of discomfort from the childlike man. "I'd expect so, yes."

The point of contact for the seal glows as the seal itself flares, and the shinobi that have been trying to stealthily make their way in stop where they are or retreat, depending. Sakura laughs a little at the sudden outpouring of pale blue chakra from the seal, which temporarily billows out into a translucent vision of the Sanbi. It then starts curling in on itself and coalescing into the shape of a small boy, smaller than Yagura even, who just so happens to be completely naked.

"Put some damn clothes on, Isobu." Sakura says as the humanized turtle blinks up at her with wide, dazed blue eyes. "I don't have anything in your size on me."

Yagura eyes Isobu a little, but doesn't seem to be interested in moving.

"I don't have any, Sakura-nee-chan." Isobu tells her, and she kind of wants to ruffle his hair, because he is _adorable_ , even if he's actually old as shit, like a millennium and a half, if one includes the time-travel. He's three times her age and still calls her Nee-chan, okay, that's just _cute._

"Maybe Yagura can order one of his minions to bring us some." Sakura says with a smile.

"Sure, fine, whatever. Let's get clothes for the bijuu, yay." Yagura says this all in a monotone, not a hint of 'yay' in sight, and still not opening his eyes. "Where the hell are my subordinates?"

"Hiding, I think." Sakura says, looking over at the shinobi that are still hovering anxiously a couple dozen feet away, loosely circling the group. Hunter nin, or Kiri's ANBU, probably. They have masks, anyway. "They aren't badly hidden, but I can tell they're there."

"Hey assholes!" She shouts, startling them. One of them actually flinches, getting _looks_ from the others. "Get us some clothes for Isobu-kun!"

Isobu waves shyly at them.

The probably-ANBU turn to look at Yagura. So does Isobu. Sakura pokes him. "They want your approval before they listen to the crazy intruder lady."

Yagura lifts a hand in the air in a thumbs-up, and then lets it drop back down to his chest.

"Good enough for me!" Sakura says cheerfully, and then kicks out her legs into a wide V, planting her hands down behind her and locking her elbows to keep her torso up. She lets her head drop back, feeling the diffuse sun on her face and smiling. "Isn't a world with people _nice_ , Isobu-kun?"

"It's less boring, yes." Isobu agrees, and then goes back to looking at Yagura. After a few seconds of hesitation, he takes his host's hand into his own. "Sorry, Yagura-san. You wouldn't have had to deal with Tobi if I hadn't been in you."

"Neither of us volunteered for that sealing." Yagura says, cracking one eye open. "From what I've heard, Kiri has some of the nicer bijuu anyway."

"Kumo and Taki didn't do too bad." Sakura says. "Suna and Konoha got the worst of it, really. Kurama was angry as shit, mostly due to _how_ Mito and Kushina had him sealed, and Shukaku's a drunk old bastard."

"Nee-chan!" Aw, Isobu sounds offended.

"What? He is!" Sakura protests. "He's old, he's drunk whenever possible, and he's a total douchebag!"

"Still…" Isobu pouts, and the conversation is broken off by exhausted laughter.

They both look back down at Yagura, who's pulled a hand up to cover his eyes, and is laughing like a very, very tired person who has nonetheless found something very funny about a situation that iwould otherwise be only a little amusing.

"You okay there?" Sakura asks wryly. She considers poking him again, but decides to cut him some slack.

"I'm listening to an immortal girl from the future argue with my child-shaped bijuu about whether or not another bijuu deserves to be called names, acting like they're siblings, after said immortal girl from the future has just destroyed almost any trace of brainwashing left on me, which I've been trying to fight for nearly a decade now." Yagura tells them. "I am a very tired man, Sakura-san. I'm going to have a lot of shit to deal with, and I can't do anything _but_ laugh when the world decides to get this strange."

"I…" Sakura feels something pooling in her stomach. Guilt, maybe? Gross. "I was just gonna get Isobu and then fuck off to Snow Country so I could steal a convertible, but I… I guess I could help you get your village back on its feet?"

She glances at Isobu for backup, and he nods encouragingly. He even has a grin on his face.

"That would be very much appreciated," Yagura tells her. "But how do you plan to explain this?"

"A wandering S-rank got bored and decided to break the mind-control you were under as a favor to your bijuu, and stuck around to help on a whim." Sakura says promptly. "Basically the truth."

"Sure," Yagura says, apparently not having the energy to argue with her. Had Sakura breaking the genjutsu really taken that much out of him? "Let's go with that."

o.o.o.o.o

Sakura tells a few Kiri shinobi the full truth while she's there. Mei is among that number.

Sakura mainly tells them because she wants anyone she fucks to know her full age and knowledge of them before they get down and dirty. It wouldn't be fair to them to sleep with someone that much older without knowing, no matter the fact that they're all adults and completely capable of consenting to such activities.

Yagura doesn't approve, but Sakura doesn't really care about his opinion on her sex life.

o.o.o.o.o

"That one?" Isobu asks, pointing at another car in the lot below them. They're on a hill in Snow Country, which still hasn't become Spring Country, and neither of them are really dressed for the weather. They don't really _need_ to be, though.

"Nah." Sakura keeps eyeing the lot. "I want a convertible."

"Nee-chan…" Isobu says, hesitating. "They're the only country that makes cars right now."

"I know."

"Nee-chan, it's too cold for convertibles." Isobu finishes.

"I _know_." Sakura whines, flopping onto her back in the snow. "It sucks."

"You could steal a normal car and then augment it yourself?" Isobu suggests. "Or have someone do it for you?"

"That would take either a lot of time or a lot of money," Sakura mutters. "So…"

"So?"

"Let's go rob a bank!"

o.o.o.o.o

 **A/N: From Narutopedia:** _ **Isobu speaks in a timid manner, referring to itself as "boku" (ボク) which is usually used by young boys.**_

 **I extrapolated Isobu's personality and humanized appearance from this.**


	2. Examining

**A/N: There's a miniscule bit of angst in one scene**

 **Also discussions of bijuu-fucking. Like... that's a thing that happens and you should probably be aware of it.**

o.o.o.o.o

Sakura has made a name for herself by the time the Chuunin Exams roll around. Granted, most people have just taken to calling her 'The Deathless' since she rarely introduces herself as Sakura anymore, but still.

(She doesn't want to steal her younger self's thunder. The currently-twelve Sakura needs to make her own way in the world without having to deal with being in the asshole Sakura's shadow.)

She shows up to the exams wearing all white, as she's gotten used to doing, something flimsy and civilian looking that nonetheless covers up almost all of her seal tattoos. The diamond on her forehead is present, and so is the curling, vine-like V-shape of the seal across her clavicles; the last tattoo that isn't covered by fabric is actually on the inside of her skull, so that clearly isn't going to show up regardless of what she wears. She's brought along a white parasol, even, which is like… weirdly good at convincing people that she's harmless. Parasols, man.

Her shoes are practical, though, and underneath all the white fabric is toughened brown leather armor, at least for her torso and legs. She doesn't really need it to survive, but it makes things easier in regards to getting people to take her seriously, and people are still really finicky about modesty. She prefers the first, since all her storage seals and whatnot are on her body, and they don't really transfer when she just regrows things from scratch. She kind of wishes she could reattach her hair like she can everything else, but it's too dead for that. Eighty years of almost no one to fight let her get a length she liked, and the hair that usually reached to her legs was now up in a ponytail that left it just barely hitting her hips.

She has two goals for the Exams:

1\. Do not let anyone die. Mostly don't let tiny Sakura and her friends die, but just overall try not to kill anyone that isn't on the shit list.

2\. Give Orochimaru his memories of the future.

Sakura likes this list a lot, and has decided that the best way to accomplish a large portion of it is to personally stalk her younger self, while sending shadow clones to do the same for everyone else she's worried about. She won't get noticed by genin (though she'll have to keep her distance from the Sandaime), and she's basically all anyone's going to need in terms of defense. She wonders how the genin will react when she jumps in to stop any to-the-death fights.

Gaara is the first attempted murder she encounters, which isn't a surprise at all. He's about to crush some genin from… hm, Amegakure, apparently, and doesn't seem very happy with Sakura's interference. The fact that her interference so far has amounted to poking the sand coffins and then pointing and laughing as it all falls uselessly to the ground is probably a factor.

"You are not a genin." He says, staring at her. "What are you?"

"Well, immortal, for one thing." Sakura says it brightly, bouncing on her toes. She hears the Ame genin scrambling to get away behind her. Gaara ignores them, and so do Kankuro and Temari when they see that their brother is more interested in Sakura. "Also, totally awesome."

Gaara's eyes narrowed, and without warning, sand short forth to envelope Sakura and begin to slowly squeeze.

Sakura releases a tiny bit of chakra vibrating at _just_ the right frequency, and it all falls down to the ground, completely useless for the next several minutes, just like with the Ame nin.

"I know Shukaku's powers inside and out, kid." Sakura tells him, tilting her head. "But I'm curious, what is he telling you?"

Gaara frowns, and Sakura can guess that there's something being said that's out of the usual. She doesn't know what, though. She's not a mind-reader; that was always more Ino's schtick.

She wonders how tiny Ino-chan is doing now.

"You are… not a jinchuuriki." Gaara says slowly, "but you have done something similar with…"

"Kaguya." Sakura interrupts. "Yeah, I've got the old bat's soul stuck inside me. She's a megalomaniacal ass, basically. Great opinions on tea and tea ceremony, though, and hella powerful."

Anko would probably like her, if not for the whole 'trying to steal all the chakra back by trapping people in an endless genjutsu" thing.

Kaguya mostly sleeps these days, like the bijuu did in their hosts so often. Sakura hadn't trusted her enough to give her time outside the seal like she had for the bijuu, so Kaguya doesn't have much to do other than rage at Sakura, and that got boring after just a handful of decades. So she sleeps, knowing that her presence is what forces Sakura to stay alive for century after century, and that for that reason, she will never know freedom.

"Don't kill anyone in here, okay?" Sakura asks and tilts her head. "You might kill someone I like, and then where would you be?"

"I wo—"

"Ah ah ah!" Sakura wags a finger at Gaara. "The correct answer is 'I would be on your shit list, Sakura-sama, and that concept is terrifying so I will do my best not to kill anyone.'"

Sakura clasps her hands in front of her and smiles a little wider. She wonders if she looks appropriately ethereal and weird in her wispy all-white ensembles in the middle of the forest. She hopes she looks like an elf in a fantasy movie; long pink hair is conducive to that sort of thing, right? "And if Shukaku tries to argue, just remind him that I've fucked bigger and badder bijuu than him into the ground."

Temari and Kankuro's eyes widen, and they end up spluttering and making various offended noises that teenagers are prone to. Gaara's eyes, instead, narrow as he stares at Sakura.

"What does that mean?" Gaara asks, looking Sakura in the eye. "What does the word 'fucked' mean?"

Sakura abruptly remembers that, while Gaara is very well-versed in the violent side of child-unfriendly subjects, he's probably had much less exposure to the _other_ part of the dark side. He's never had adults that are willing to make dirty jokes or are liable to leave out adult reading material, and his older siblings aren't close enough to take it upon themselves to explain.

"Had sex with." Sakura says, figuring she might as well tell him. "Attempted to bring each other to orgasm by stimulating sexual organs and erogenous zones of the body. Traditionally penis-in-vagina sex, but let's be real, there's a whole world of strange positions and stranger kinks out there, and I've enjoyed plenty of them."

Gaara blinks. "And you managed this with a bijuu."

"With _multiple_ bijuu," Sakura corrects, "though not at the same time, since they consider each other siblings and that would be gross. And they're capable of taking human form if they so choose, though they usually choose not to, so yeah, it was possible."

She considers not saying the next part, but really, it's just too much fun. "And I usually topped, too, which for Gaara's sake, I will explain as meaning that I was the dominant one in the moment."

There's some dying-brain noises coming from Temari and Kankuro now, mostly little strangled whimpers that are less "save me" and more "graaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHGHGHGHG SHUT THE FUCK UP."

"Well," Sakura claps her hands again and smiles. "I'll be getting out of your way now, but remember! I'm watching everything, and if you break my rules, I will not hesitate to interfere."

"It is not against the rules of the exam to kill." Gaara says.

"Who said my rules were the same as the exams?" Sakura snorts, "I'm not affiliated with Konoha, or any village, really, not officially. I'm not telling you not to kill because you'd get kicked out of the exams. I'm telling you not to kill because killing people is going to _piss me off._ "

"And if you're still wondering what little ol' me can do, even after seeing me negate the main attack for one of the strongest people in the forest with no problem at all…" Sakura smiles sweetly and punches sideways into the tree next to her. The point of impact explodes, loudly, and the tree starts to wobble.

When it falls towards Sakura, she is ready, and catches it with one hand, still smiling at the Suna Siblings. She hefts it up and down a few times, letting it stay airborne for a few feet before dropping back into her palm. "I'm the strongest fucking person on the planet right now."

Gaara's eyes narrow, and then he turns to go. "Temari, Kankuro, we're leaving."

Sakura waves goodbye with a smile, and promptly disappears into the trees to keep following them.

o.o.o.o.o

Keeping her tiny self alive is significantly more difficult. Tiny Sakura is on Team Seven, and Orochimaru's an unpredictable and wily bastard even on his nicer days.

This is not one of his nicer days.

It isn't even one of his nicer _decades_.

Sakura only really survived the first time because of luck. She's determined not to let her tiny self die now just because she's careless and might have changed something weird.

As Orochimaru spots her tiny self while monologuing at the genin team, these suspicions are proven right. Orochimaru hadn't paid much attention to Sakura the first time around, being much more interested in the Sharingan and the Kyuubi. Sakura, a little almost-civilian with nothing special about her other than pink hair and perfect chakra control? She was nothing compared to the boys, not in Orochimaru's eyes.

(Not in anyone's, really. She was still a little bitter that it had taken Tsunade herself to turn her into the monster she could be, _needed_ to be.)

When Orochimaru sees tiny Sakura, he drops out of whatever battle he's playing at with the boys and jumps down to stand right in front of the little girl that's shaking in her sandals. She looks tiny, and pathetic, but there's terrified determination in her eyes and in the white-knuckled grip she has on her kunai, even as she stares up at one of the Sannin.

"Oh? What have we here?" Orochimaru muses as he dodges yet another set of attacks from Sasuke. "You aren't the woman that got into my compound and yet… the similarities are uncanny."

Tiny Sakura tries to attack Orochimaru, breaking her frozen concentration and aiming for a femoral artery. It's an attack of desperation, because it's clear after the boys that Sakura has no chance, not in a frozen hell. But she tries, because a cornered animal will do anything to survive, and she aims as she does because Sakura is nothing if not brainy.

Orochimaru stops her with little more than a hand on her head, stopping her rush almost before it gets started.

"Tut tut, child, didn't anyone ever tell you not to interrupt your elders?" Orochimaru scolds, his other hand coming up to grip tiny Sakura's chin, fingers digging into her cheeks. "Add a few years and training, and I wouldn't be surprised if—"

"If she turned into me?"

Silence crosses the clearing, if only momentarily. Even Naruto stops yelling to look up at the woman standing high in the trees.

Sakura the Deathless smiles down at her team, still children, and the man who had somehow become her best friend for literally centuries.

And then he ditched her.

"Hi!" Sakura calls down, waving. "It's been a few months, hasn't it, Chi-chan?"

Orochimaru's face spasms minutely. "Don't call me that."

Sakura pouts. She also takes a step forward and drops out of the tree she's been standing in, plummeting several dozen feet before she hits the ground.

She has to push Naruto out of the way as she walks forward, and that prompts him into moving.

"Hey! Who the hell are you and why do you look like Sakura-chan!"

Sakura ignores him, focused solely on Orochimaru and her tiny self. "Told you I'd find you again."

"This isn't really the best time," Orochimaru says, like she's trying to invite him out for a coffee in the middle of a business meeting, rather than interrupting him while he's busy destroying a trio of children.

"Maa, is it ever the best time for anything?" Sakura brings up one hand to cup her chin, and cradles her elbow in the other. "I mean, what if the best time doesn't exist, but something still needs to be done?"

"What do you want?" Orochimaru asks, finally turning to fully face her, and releasing her tiny self in the process.

"Don't kill them." Sakura says, moving to cross her arms across her chest. "These kids? No death, no permanent injury, nothing of that sort."

Orochimaru's eyes flick to Sasuke, and Sakura snorts. "That's reversible. For me, at least, not for anyone else. Even Jiraiya wouldn't be able to break that sucker open or take it off, but let's be real: I'm better."

"You have a high opinion of your skills."

Sakura flashes forward into Orochimaru's space, and while he does bring up a kunai to stop her own, it's clear in his eyes that he understands just how outclassed he is at that moment. She smiles as she pushes the kunai a bit closer to his chest, making her superior strength obvious. "I do, don't I?"

They disengage and skid back a little, and Orochimaru glances from her forehead to her arms and nods to himself. "Tsunade's techniques?"

"Amongst others." Sakura answers; it's enough to confirm his suspicions, but also to raise up more. Orochimaru has ways to negate some of Tsunade's abilities; if Sakura were limited to Tsunade's alone, she'd be a much easier opponent for him to deal with. By implying that there's more, she's made it clear to Orochimaru that there are things he doesn't know and doesn't expect, and probably doesn't have a counter for.

He will, once she gives him his memories back. Basically anything she developed prior to his death, he has a counter to, and she has the same for him. But even with his memories back, she's going to have eighty years of developments to mess around with. Her fuuinjutsu may have developed the most, but she didn't exactly slack on the rest.

"You're a dangerous woman."

 _So are you_ , Sakura doesn't say, because Orochimaru's relationship with gender as a concept still hasn't reached the point where he can just throw his hands up in the air and say 'I don't care anymore.' He still thinks of himself as wholly male right now, no matter the body he inhabits, and will probably take it as an insult.

(The Orochimaru that Sakura knows still uses 'he,' but is otherwise very… indifferent, when it comes to gender and sexuality and any number of things.)

(He kind of doesn't give a shit anymore.)

(Gender was a social construct, and what was the point of a social construct when all of humanity was dead and society no longer existed anyway?)

(The point is, he'd laugh at the 'so are you' comment.)

"I know, right?" She says instead, and finally turns to Naruto, who _still hasn't stopped shouting_. "I have the same name as your friend there, since parents who have pink-haired children tend to be rather unimaginative in their naming skills. You can… you can call me Sakura the Deathless."

"A presumptive epithet," Orochimaru notes.

"I'm not the one that chose it," Sakura shoots back, because she _wasn't_. "You think I would have gone with 'Deathless' if I'd had a choice?"

"It sounds like a fairy tale." Orochimaru tells her, and his hands are forming seals. "And what fairy tale is complete without a treacherous snake of a villain?"

A barrage of snakes bursts from his sleeves and heads in her direction.

"Like, at least eight of them, off the top of my head." Sakura responds immediately. "Little Red Riding Hood, Momotaro, Cinderella,"

She casts a wide-impact medical technique that makes a swathe of the snakes shrivel up and die as the moisture is sucked out of them.

"Snow White, Goldilocks, Urashima Taro,"

Orochimaru's gotten Kusanagi out in the time that Sakura's spent avoiding his smaller summons, and the sword ends up almost skewering her as Orochimaru controls it from a distance.

"the Little Mermaid, the Big Bad Wolf, the Tale of the Bamboo Cutter—"

 _YOU DARE BRING THAT TRAVESTY UP IN MY PRESENCE?_

Kaguya howls with rage and slams herself against the golden bars of her prison in Sakura's soul. It is a gilded prison indeed, and Kaguya is usually content to sleep, or at least to act like the refined princess she once was, but…

" _FOR FUCK'S SAKE, WOMAN!"_ Sakura yells, staggering to the side and digging the heel of one palm into her eye. The voice is loud and surprising, and it's enough to startle her. " _IT'S BEEN FIVE HUNDRED YEARS, GET OVER IT!"_

Orochimaru pauses in his attacks, clearly a little more interested in the fact that Sakura is yelling at nothing than in ending her there and then.

(He _can't_ end her, of course, but he'll try nonetheless.)

 _Filthy child born of a worm-ridden womb and a flea-bitten cur, rotten oyster flesh and—_

"It's just a fucking fairy tale!" Sakura yells, deliberately ignoring the four people that are still in the clearing around her. Why haven't the genin run? _Why are they still here when S-ranks are playing?_ "Grow up!"

 _—an insult to my name and title, nothing but yellow-bellied lies and rotten—_

"I hate her so much…" Sakura moans, dropping her head into her hands. "She can be okay sometimes, but she's such a _conceited bitch_ when something sets her off."

There's silence for a few moments, broken only by the ambient noise of the forest, some breaking debris as someone shifts their weight, and Kaguya's endless anger. Sakura's not sure what she's expecting, but a tiny hand patting her ribcage isn't it. "I'm sure this person sucks, lady."

Sakura looks down to see Naruto, who is indeed patting the highest part of her that he can reach. He'd probably be going for the shoulder if he were tall enough.

"She tried to take over the world once," Sakura tells him, not even questioning Naruto's decision to not be suspicious of her anymore. "I stopped her, but she's still mad at me."

"Did one of those stories make her mad or something?"

"The bamboo cutter one. It's… complicated." Sakura pauses, "I'll maybe tell you in a few years. You should probably run away before Orochimaru remembers you and your friends exist. He's a Kage-level ninja, and even though I can fight on his level, you're just genin."

Orochimaru has _definitely_ remembered that the genin exist, but if she's keeping him silently frozen in place with some modified Nara techniques, it's not like he'll _really—_

He breaks out.

Just as Naruto is promising to leave and get to the Tower safely, Orochimaru breaks through Sakura's hold and lunges for Sasuke, successfully latching onto Sasuke's shoulder with his mouth and planting a Curse Seal. It's even in the exact same spot as last time.

And then Naruto of course forgets that he's supposed to be helping his friends _run away_ , and instead charges Orochimaru. The man is apparently done playing, because he just slams a palm into Naruto's stomach and plants that _fucking annoying_ disruption seal, and Naruto collapses to the ground, groaning.

Sakura watches the whole thing play out in less than ten seconds, and then comes to a decision.

She rushes over and slams a knee into Orochimaru's stomach. She follows it up with a hammer to the back of his neck so she can make sure there's enough downwards momentum for her real goal to work.

She punts him.

Across several miles of forest.

Just straight up kicks him in the abs while he's on his way down and propels him away.

"Get fuuuuuuuuuuucked!" She yells after him, despite the fact that he almost certainly can't hear her from how fast he's going. She'd be surprised that it wasn't a clone of some sort, but she knows that he prefers to plant seals in person, and she hadn't seen him switch out after the seal on Sasuke.

Sakura hears whimpering and looks over the see her tiny self. The girl is trembling and staring down at Sasuke, occasionally looking over at Naruto, and still less often looking up at the adult Sakura.

The adult Sakura struggles with her guilt for about three seconds, and then sighs. "Let me see them."

She ignores tiny Sakura (actually, she picks the girl up and sets her to the side), and passes a glowing green hand over each boy. They're in danger, but not as much as she'd feared when she was at this age the first time; they're actually better off than she expects even now. With a second pass, she heals the absolute worst of the damage, and watches as some of the trembling subsides.

"That's the most I can do without disqualifying you," Sakura says, which is a horrible, awful lie, but her team needs the experiences they'll get in this forest. "Good luck with the rest of your exam."

"Wait, but what about—"

Sakura's gone before tiny Sakura can finish, and she really hopes that the girl cares for the boys the same way she did the first time, and that all the rest of the confrontations in the forest play out similarly enough that she doesn't have to worry about dead Konoha genin popping up when there shouldn't be.

The forest has… a number of fairly important interactions. Some of her first real, proper introductions to her classmates (and Team Gai) as proper shinobi and not fellow Academy students had happened here in the forest. She hopes she hasn't messed that up somehow.

o.o.o.o.o

Karin is… small.

It's not… it's not that Sakura _expected_ her to be any bigger than the other children, but Sakura hadn't met Karin until several years later; she had no memories of Karin at this age. Moreover, Karin had outlived a significant portion of the world's population, and Sakura had well over a century of adult Karin in her memories due to the Uzumaki vitality that kept her alive.

But right now, Karin is smaller than Sakura expects, and her teammates are dead (Sakura's fault, really, since she didn't want to interfere with Sasuke and Karin's first meeting). It might also be her personality, because the Karin that Sakura knew was a terrifyingly aggressive woman when she wanted to be, which was most of the time. Anything she couldn't talk into submission, she'd had chakra chains and plain old fists for.

Tiny Karin is mostly just marching very slowly towards the tower, and trying very hard not to die. She sniffles, sometimes. Her shoulders are hunched. She avoids trouble using her special chakra sensing technique instead of fighting anyone.

She is, in short, a bit pathetic, but overall rather intelligently avoiding any trouble she can't handle.

"So…" Sakura drawls from a tree branch, leaning against the trunk and making a show of examining her fingernails. Karin startles and looks up at her. "Did you know you're an Uzumaki?"

Something in Karin's face tightens. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

Which is just… a textbook "I know but I won't admit it" answer, honestly. She seems to know it, too, but keeps looking directly at Sakura.

Oh. _Oh._ Sakura actually hit a button. It takes her longer than she'd like to admit to realize that Karin is holding a kunai in a white-knuckle grip that is half fear and half anger. It's just… that stubborn refusal to talk about the past is so _Karin_ that Sakura forgets, if only for a moment, that it doesn't really fit in with what she's seen of the girl so far.

She's probably been taught all her life that being an Uzumaki means being hunted, and the safest way to exist is to pretend that she isn't.

"There's another Uzumaki in the Exams, you know." Sakura keeps talking like Karin didn't just deny her heritage. "He doesn't look it, since he got his dad's coloring, but his mom was a pretty powerful member of your clan."

"There _are_ no Uzumaki." Karin says slowly. "The only survivor was the girl sent to Konoha before the destruction of Uzushiogakure to…"

Sakura's smile widens as Karin makes the connection. Sakura never asked Karin where she got her information in the future, and has just assumed that Karin had read it from Orochimaru's files like everything else, but for the girl to know this young… perhaps her mother had told her more stories of her history than Sakura had thought.

"Uzumaki Kushina died the night of the Kyuubi attack, almost thirteen years ago. No others escaped." Karin finally says. There's a lot of meaning wrapped up into a handful of words, there. She could have figured out any number of things, but Sakura's willing to bet that she's already made the (fairly simple) connection that Kushina was Naruto's mother, that the Kyuubi is now inside Naruto, and that the attack was probably a result of childbirth weakening her seal.

"There's also an Uzumaki over in Amegakure; he's a bit of an extremist right now and making a lot of bad choices, but I can talk to him." Sakura is planning to do a bit more than talk to Nagato, but Karin doesn't need to know the details. Too many seals and too much blood for a little genin.

"And why are you offering to do all this for a girl who isn't even actually a—"

"You _are_ an Uzumaki, Karin, I can sense it."

"I didn't tell you my name." Karin says, and her body is wound tight in a way that betrays all the fear and tension she's carrying inside herself at the moment.

Huh. Seems that the whole 'kind of terrified and weak' thing only applies in combat scenarios. The more this turns into a verbal spar instead of a physical attack, the calmer and more confrontational Karin gets.

Sakura finds that… interesting.

"Well, if you don't want to stay with Kusa, then you can come with me." Sakura offers. "Or you can talk to the Hokage and defect to Konoha if you want; I hear they're pretty open to taking in more Uzumaki."

Karin blinks once. "You're not a Konoha nin?"

"I'm not officially affiliated with any of the villages right now," Sakura tells her. "That may change."

It probably won't, unless she tries to start her own village. Or maybe joins Oto? That could probably work, sort of. Once Orochimaru has his memories back, he's probably going to feel obligated to take care of his fledgling village, and Sakura already knows that she's probably going to be spending most of her time with him after that point. So… she'll probably be a part-time consultant for Oto and Kiri and whoever else bothers to contact her. She doesn't want to be tied down, though, and she sure as _hell_ doesn't want to be anyone's subordinate.

Definitely not Orochimaru's.

"Here," she finally says, after realizing that Karin hasn't actually responed. She tosses down a small scroll the size of her index finger. "Push a bit of chakra into that if you decide to take me up on my offer."

Karin slowly crouches down to take the scroll, never taking her eyes off of Sakura.

Sakura contemplates for half a second, and then flashes forward and shoves her face into Karin's. "BAH!"

There's barely an inch between them, and that's quickly gone as Karin screams a little and jumps back.

"You've got a lot of growing up to do, kid, but I think you'll do fine." Sakura chuckles, and disappears.

o.o.o.o.o

Ino was one of Sakura's best friends for most of her life, and a large portion of her death. Ino had been one of Sakura's most frequent Edo Tensei summons, to the point where the blonde hadn't even been surprised to randomly wake up and see Sakura's smiling face backdropped by the dead remains of a once-great city or some other modern setting.

But she'd also been very firm on refusing to let Sakura copy her memories and take them back in time with her.

 _"I don't care how much you want me there, Sakura. You're going to have at least a few people you're doing this for, right? You don't need me, and I don't want to take the place of my younger self. It would… she's a child. It would be wrong."_

Sakura wasn't so far gone as to betray Ino's trust and do it anyway, so there's an ache in her chest as she spies on Team Ten. Ino's still brash and hasn't had her arrogance tempered by age and experience yet, and she really is little more than a child. Shikamaru and Chouji similarly have elements of their future personalities, but it's all… buried under immaturity.

Sakura wants her best friend back, but it's obvious that's not going to happen. So she'll just have to keep the fun-sized version safe instead.

o.o.o.o.o

The other Konoha teams are more or less the same, and more or less safe even without Sakura's interference. She stops a few non-Konoha teams from dying, but otherwise tries not to get involved too much. She has enough shadow clones running around the place to keep things more or less under control, and—

"Going somewhere?" Orochimaru croons from behind her, arm reaching around to hold a sword to her throat. Again.

"Just trying to keep as many people alive as possible. There's a good chance humanity's going to be existing within a few centuries, you know. Gotta keep the pool of potential survivors as big as possible if we want things to stay interesting." Sakura hesitates, and then leans back against Orochimaru's chest, putting enough weight against him to make it a tactical weakness. All he has to do is take a step back and she'll be unbalanced.

Granted, with the sword there, she'll also be headless, but that's fairly minor in the grand scheme of things.

"You still haven't explained what you mean by the brain." Orochimaru reminds her. He presses back after a moment, refusing to back down, from his perspective.

Sakura wonders how many times he's going to slam his head against the wall when he remembers everything. She knows she's going to tease him about it, which should piss him off like nothing else.

"All in due time, sweetcheeks." Sakura leans her head back to rest on Orochimaru's shoulder (he stiffens, ever so slightly), and smiles as she looks into his eyes. "I'll meet you in the third exam, yeah?"

"Do you plan to hinder my… plans?"

"I'm not going to tell Konoha or Suna about what you're planning ahead of time," She tells him. "But I _am_ going to show up midway through to finally give you that pesky scroll and fuck with your head. And say 'hi' to whomever you Edo Tensei."

Orochimaru blinks, and then takes a full step away from her. Sakura pouts at him, exaggerating the expression as much as she can. "You're not going to stop me from using Edo Tensei."

"Nope."

"Why?"

"Well, it's not like I can't fix whoever's been used as a sacrifice, so long as you don't dismiss the technique before I get to them." Sakura says, which is logical and true but nonetheless makes Orochimaru's eyes widen. "And you're probably going to summon someone super interesting, which is, you know, awesome. The dead Hokage, right? I can't wait to punch Tobirama in the face."

Orochimaru looks like he just walked into his office after someone had turned everything upside down and glued it to the ceiling, and then pretended that it had always been that way when questioned. "Why?"

"He won't remember why." Sakura assures him, "But I do."

 _Because the asshole said I couldn't do it, and yet! Look at me, back in the past like a boss!_

"I… see," Orochimaru said, in a manner that indicated that he did not, in fact, see what she saying at all. "So you won't interfere with my plans beyond the planned resurrections and the fight associated with them?"

"And the Jinchuuriki." Sakura adds, "Though I won't really get involved there other than at the very end, unless someone actually starts dying."

"Because…" Orochimaru prompts, since Sakura hasn't really made a huge effort to be difficult and secretive, beyond the nature of the whole brain thing.

"It involves bijuu-fucking." Sakura says, because in for a penny, in for a pound, right? "They can take human form, did you know? I mean, the _last_ time I saw the Kyuubi…"

Well, Kurama was fun.

Orochimaru's face passes through a handful of expressions. "You plan to have sexual intercourse with a tailed beast."

"Well, they can change shape so the genitalia's compatible, and everyone's a consenting adult, and some of them are pretty hot, so…" Sakura shrugged. "I mean, adulthood's a mindset that just kind of plateaus after a while, you know? Five hundred years old or fifteen hundred, we're all grown-ups."

Orochimaru doesn't seem to know how to respond to that. Sakura doesn't blame him, not really. He's so used to holding all the cards and knowing all the possibilities that someone like Sakura is very much out of left field for him.

"So… see you then?" Sakura says hopefully, like she hasn't just confessed to the desire and history of making the beast with two backs with an actual tailed beast.

"…I suppose so, if you have no plans to interfere." Orochimaru says.

Sakura disappears with a smile.

o.o.o.o.o

Isobu is pretty much exactly where Sakura left him. There's a small café in a small town a small distance from Konoha, which glass walls and cozy armchairs. Isobu's in one of those armchairs, reading a book. There's a stack of even more books on the table next to him, so many that it reaches up higher than his head.

"I'm done with my errands," Sakura says as she takes a seat. She smiles at the server that pauses by their table, "Can I get a mocha latte?"

"No problem," The woman says, and is gone a moment later, presumably to make the mocha latte.

"Did it go how you wanted, Nee-chan?" Isobu asks.

"More or less. I'm going to put off on getting Shukaku and Kurama until the third exams." Sakura drums her fingers against the table. "More dramatic that way."

"Isn't that kind of mean to Gaara, though?"

"Shukaku's going to behave himself," Sakura says, and there's something terribly knowing in her voice. "He's an ass and he knows it, but he's not going to keep torturing Gaara. He's better than that, now."

"So he already remembers?" Isobu asks, "Or do you need contact directly?"

Sakura blinks at the child-sized bijuu next to her. "What do you mean? Shouldn't you know?"

"Obito's control made everything a little hazy," Isobu confesses, "I don't think I was aware enough to remember anything."

Sakura reaches out to pat his head. "That's fair. Sorry I couldn't get to you earlier."

"It's okay, Nee-chan. You did your best." Isobu says, leaning into the hand that's resting on his head. "Besides, I didn't really have to go through more than a week of it this time, and you got rid of at least a year of it for Yagura."

"Well, my chakra contacted Shukaku's when I disrupted the sand control technique, so it's a moot point on that front. He should remember either way." Sakura shrugs and leans back in her chair.

"That's good."

"How _is_ Yagura, by the way?" Sakura asks. "You went back at night, right?"

"He's doing okay, but he's kind of stressed and feeling super guilty about everything. He's relying on Mei-nee-chan and Ao a lot." Isobu looks down at the table while talking about Yagura. "And I left the anchoring seal you gave me here in town so I could come back in the mornings and wait for you, just like you said."

"Where'd you leave the books?" Sakura asks, just as her drink arrives. She takes a sip when Isobu answers, and hums a little to herself; there hadn't exactly been a lot of access to good coffee in the future.

"In the car, with my clothes and all the other stuff I can't take with me to Yagura." Isobu reaches out and drops the keys into Sakura's waiting hand.

"Well… how do you feel about a road trip?"

"Where to?"

"I'm thinking Ame or Kumo. Your pick."


	3. Travelling

**NOTICE: I write Killer A as Killer Ei, because MS Word has spellcheck and it throws a fit whenever I try to use A as a noun instead of as an article adjective.**

o.o.o.o.o

They do not go directly to Ame or Kumo. Instead, they go back to Kiri for a bit first.

"Why are you _here?_ " Yagura demands, in the middle of signing some paperwork. Mei is in a hunter-nin mask in front of him, and there's a bloody head hanging from her hand, which is gripping the hair.

Mei wiggles the fingers of her other hand in Sakura's direction with a coy pose, and Sakura smirks.

"Sorry, Mei, we're heading up to Kumo after this." She does not, in fact, sound particularly sorry at all. "Can't stay long."

Sakura can't see Mei's face due to the mask, but she gets the distinct feeling that Mei is giving her a put-upon pout.

"Buuuuuut I came here for a reason!" Sakura smiles and turns to Yagura again. "Come to the Third Exams."

"No."

"But Yagu-chaaaaaaa—"

She cuts off the whine as she dodges a furiously thrown mug that proceeds to shatter against the wall behind her. She glances at the wall, and then back at Yagura. "That was rude."

"Don't call me that." Yagura says, instead of apologizing.

(Mei is laughing at them.)

"Oh, come on! Just come to the exams! You can leave a shadow clone, if you have to."

"And if it pops?"

"You have, like, at least three people that could do the administrative work of a Kage for you in the interim. Other Kage can manage!" Sakura insists.

"Other Kage aren't pulling together a broken village." Yagura shoots back.

(To the side, Mei is pinching Isobu's cheeks and cooing over him. Unlike Yagura, Isobu suffers the situation without complaint, just pouting a little at Mei, with his big blue eyes opened wide and lip wobbling.)

"… _I_ could help—"

" _No._ " Yagura looks sick at the very idea of it.

"Why not?"

"Because you're a disaster on two legs," he says, "And because I'm half convinced you'd organize an orgy instead of actually helping out."

Sakura doesn't really know how to respond to that, beyond, "I kinda max out at threesomes, y'know?"

" _Get out of my office, Haruno._ "

(Mei promises to do what she can to set things up so she and Yagura are in Konoha for the exams. Given the fact that she's kind of caressing Sakura's ass as she says it, Sakura thinks she can guess why.)

(Five hundred years is a very long time to practice some very specific skills, after all. And Mei does _so_ appreciate a hard worker.)

o.o.o.o.o

Sarutobi Hiruzen had the feeling that he was too old for this.

"You're _sure_ she had super-strength, medical techniques, and a diamond seal on her forehead?" he asks the genin team again, because he knows the answer won't change, but there's still a vague sort of hope that it might.

"Yeah, jii-chan, we told you!" Naruto yells, and it's a little telling that his teammates don't try to berate him. They're probably just as annoyed as he is, by now.

Hiruzen puffs a little on his pipe. "Did either of them mention Senju Tsunade?"

Naruto frowns in that peculiar way he has when he's thinking very hard, where he ends up looking more like he's constipated than anything. Sakura seems to remember something, but Sasuke is the one to speak up. "He asked her at one point if she was using Tsunade's techniques."

"And?"

"She said 'amongst others,'" Sakura says with the odd stress that implies she's quoting directly from a past conversation. "Senju Tsunade was one of the other members of the Densetsu no Sannin, right?"

"Yes, she was. Still is, actually." Hiruzen laces his fingers together in front of his chin. "Were there any other names they mentioned?"

"No, but she talked about a mean old woman in her head." Naruto says, and when Sasuke scoffs, he frowns. "Hey, what's that for? She did!"

"She was clearly insane if she was hearing voices." Sasuke drawls, and Sakura… Sakura flinches.

(Hiruzen wonders about that.)

But Naruto's reaction is the most telling, because his frown goes from angry to contemplative. "I don't think so."

"What do you mean, Naruto?" Hiruzen encourages him to keep talking.

"Well…" Naruto seems to shrink in on himself. "She said the woman in her head tried to take over the world, but the crazy older Sakura stopped her, right? So, um… what if she's like…"

Naruto trails off, hands drifting down to wrap uncomfortably around his stomach, and he looks off to the side. His teammates look annoyed, at best, like they think he's just trying to suggest something stupid, but there's a sharpness in Kakashi's gaze.

(There's been something dangerous in Kakashi's eye since he ran into Orochimaru while trying to seal what he could of the Cursed Seal on Sasuke's shoulder, way down in the basement of the tower in the Forest of Death.)

"That's a dangerous claim, Naruto-kun." Hiruzen says after a few moments, but for someone to fight Orochimaru and win, it's not unreasonable to assume that they may be a jinchuuriki. Sasuke and Sakura seems shocked that he's taking Naruto's suggestion, as vague as it is to them, at all seriously.

"She called herself Deathless, right? And, um, _those_ kinds of people heal faster, so if she got, like, the _best_ healing…" Naruto keeps trying to argue his case, "and she said something about five hundred years, jii-chan!"

Hiruzen doesn't wince externally, but on the inside, he's wondering. It's possible that the woman is just a very powerful S-rank kunoichi who happened to be schizophrenic.

It's also possible that she has some ridiculously powerful entity like the bijuu sealed into her.

Or even both.

"And, um," Naruto's still talking? Oh. "She said that the lady in her head really hates the Tale of the Bamboo Cutter."

That is… strangely specific, Hiruzen thinks. His frown deepens in confusion.

"She said…" Sasuke starts, with a pinched look on his face as he struggles to remember the words. He's apparently decided that if the Hokage himself is taking Naruto seriously on this, then he might as well add details he'd considered extraneous as well. "She said, 'It's been five hundred years, get over it.'"

"But five hundred years of _what?_ " Sakura mumbles, looking like she's asking herself more than anyone else. "She only looked about Kakashi-sensei's age."

"We could ask if any of the other genin encountered her." Kakashi finally says, breaking his silence. "We can't force the foreign ones to tell us anything, but it wouldn't be too hard to question whether they encountered anyone vastly above genin levels during the exams."

"We would risk alerting the other villages to gaps in our security." Hiruzen sighs. "Our best hope is simply that the other genin tell us of their own volition if they encountered this woman."

"If they haven't yet, they probably won't at all," Kakashi warns. The orange book as nowhere in sight.

"Unfortunate, but true." Hiruzen sighs. "Team Seven, you are dismissed. Kakashi, I'd like you to stay behind for now."

"I'll meet you in Training Ground Three," Kakashi tells his students as they file out.

"Bye, Jiji!"

Hiruzen fights the urge to slump down in his chair as the genin leave. Now he's going to have to be on the lookout for both his wayward student _and_ the mystery woman for the rest of the exams, if not longer.

He's definitely too old for this job.

o.o.o.o.o

"Well, hot damn," Sakura mutters, "I forgot how attractive he was."

Isobu shoots her a look that says 'don't.'

"Relax, he's a complete asshole and never even tried to redeem himself." Sakura pats Isobu on the head, though she doesn't take her eyes off the man that has stalled out their road trip to Kumo by just standing in the middle of the road. "Granted, he didn't get much of a chance, but he considers mass murder a religious calling, and he's nothing if not devout."

Hidan hears her, somehow, and grins. "Damn right I do."

Sakura considers for a moment. "So, do you mind if we skip the whole 'attempted murder' thing? All three of us are immortal, so it would just be… such a massive waste of time."

"Yeah? You think?" Hidan hefts his scythe up over her shoulders, shifting his leather jacket and _holy shit the abs on this man._

Sakura forcibly tears her attention from the admittedly delicious-looking muscles and shrugs. "I mean, we _can_ fight, but I have more experience and I heal faster, so I'm not sure you'd have any fun."

"How much?"

"…I'm sorry?"

"How much fucking experience do you have?" He asks again, irritation coloring his tone, presumably because her slight delay in understanding what he was asking.

"Sorry, dude, but you're going to hate this: five hundred years." Sakura says, standing up where she is and using the windshield to keep herself upright.

"… _Bullshit_." He says, and wow, is that what he looks like when he's insulted but not screaming his head off? Weirdly attractive. Sakura is not comfortable with the level of attractiveness in this serial killer. "You don't even look like you're thirty yet!"

"Did I or did I not admit to being just as immortal as you?" Sakura demands. "And hey! Isobu's even older!"

Isobu gives a little wave at Hidan, and then goes back to… is that Cat's Cradle? It is. Huh.

Hidan stares at the two of them for a moment, eyes squinted up and suddenly much less pretty. He looks constipated, and that kind of thinking face is so _Naruto_ that Sakura almost falls out of the car laughing.

She doesn't.

She does crack a smile, though.

"Give yourself a few more years to get better!" She tells him cheerily. "Maybe you'll actually be able to put up a fight by then!"

Hidan's face twists into a scowl and he spits, "The fuck did you say?"

Isobu groans and puts his head in his hands. He knows what's coming.

"Get better first, and then maybe I'll fight you. Right now, though…" Sakura says, and there's a flash of movement. She jumps out of the car to intercept Hidan before he can scratch her paint job with the wild flailing of the scythe in his hands.

"Right now, you don't even have a chance." Sakura hisses, and lets the full weight of her chakra and killing intent drop down on the area like a blanket. It's enough to kill a civilian. It's enough to kill a genin, even.

It's certainly not enough to kill Hidan, but that's not the point.

The point is intimidation. Sakura knows how to play her cards, and different people require different forms of intimidation. For Orochimaru, veiled hints at her speed and a demonstration of her strength was enough; he could make the connections on his own. For Hidan, who prefers not to think overly much in the heat of battle, she needs to showcase raw power and brutality, not skill.

(For Danzo, whom she hasn't yet visited, she needs pure skill. Sneaking in unnoticed, destroying seals, unveiling his stockpiled organs, and oh-so-many medical techniques… that is what Danzo respects.)

In a shinobi battle, raw power is chakra, and brutality is killing intent.

And Sakura has nearly endless quantities of both.

She grins, wide and maybe just a little unhinged, as she uses but a fraction of her strength to push Hidan back, back, back until he's pressed up against a tree, the bright red handle of his own scythe digging into his neck. There's sweat pouring down his face, and his pupils are blown wide. Good. That's an acceptable fear respo—

Sakura pauses as she registers a specific hormone that is absolutely _not_ fear managing to make itself known to her sense of smell.

Sakura looks down.

She looks back up.

"Do you _seriously_ have a boner right now?" She asks, almost incredulous. Sure, she's had her own share of arousal in the face of displays of intense power, but that was always with the knowledge that the person in question wasn't interested in hurting or killing her anyway.

Hidan at least has the decency to look a little embarrassed, even if it's an angry kind of mortification. "Shut the fuck up."

Sakura stares at him for a moment, open-mouthed. Normally, she'd press the issue of someone being attracted to her to see if she could get some fun for the night, but this is _Hidan_.

If there's one Akatsuki member she'd never fuck, it's…

Actually, the one she'd never fuck is Zetsu, for obvious reasons.

But Hidan is a close se—

Goddamn it, okay, he's tied for second with Kakuzu. They're both assholes and she'd need to think long and hard before even _attempting_ that.

(Deidara is off the list of possibilities at _all_. So is Itachi. They're both still teenagers. Children, compared to her.)

"Right, so, I'm going to _leave_ now." Sakura mutters, dropping the scythe into Hidan's fumbling hands and jumping back over to the car. She doesn't jump into the car, because that would damage it, but the twenty-foot leap is hardly impressive. She hears Hidan moving behind her, and turns just in time to see him shove a finger in her face.

Surprisingly, the finger is the lesser of two rude gestures, as Hidan is pointing at her face and scowling.

"You're the bitch that did weird shit to time, aren't you?

Sakura blinks twice, opens her mouth to answer, closes it when she can't think of anything to immediately say, and finally just settles with a flabbergasted, " _How?_ "

"Jashin-sama told me to be on the lookout," Hidan says, his grip on his scythe tightening. He doesn't look like he's about to attack, though.

"Do you remember?" Sakura asks, wondering if maybe—

"No."

Ah. Never mind, then. "Well, I guess in that case, I'll just be going then."

It's one of the most awkward ways she's ever left a confrontation, and it only gets worse as they drive off.

"Oh _dude_ , I totally missed out on a chance to call him a Jashinist fuckbucket."

Sakura can't believe she forgot.

"I gotta go back. I gotta go back and pick another fight so I can call him a—"

"Nee-chan, _no_."

o.o.o.o.o

Kumogakure is far more militarized than any other Hidden Village. In the ways that matter, at least. Kiri may have it beat in percentage-of-population, and Iwa may have it beat in terms of war-hungry culture, and Konoha may have a larger population, but when it comes down to it…

Kumo is a fucking scary place.

It's not that they're crude. It's not that they're focused on nothing but power. It's not that they do awful things to make stronger warriors.

Because they don't.

There's an underlying power in everyone and everything, though.

It's like… old money. They aren't _flaunting_ their power, not really. They show off, but there's an air of ease to daily life. _Of course_ they have this power. It's nothing strange.

Kumo's military strength isn't a boast so much as a fact of life that everyone simply accepts.

It's remarkably casual.

Which is, of course, why Sakura finds the highest point she can (the spire on the Raikage's office), cups her hands around her mouth, and shouts, "YO, I WANT TO FIGHT A JINCHUURIKI!"

Sakura isn't exactly one for much subtlety these days.

The parts of Kumo closest to her position quiet down as people turn to stare at her in disbelief.

Isobu is about three feet down from her, clinging to the roof with chakra, with his face buried in his hands. Sakura's pretty sure he wants no part in this. He's here anyway, because he's awesome.

The first high-level ninja that comes to her is not, sadly, one of the Jinchuuriki. Rather, it is the Raikage.

"'Sup?" Sakura asks, with an upward jerk of her chin that could, if one squinted, be read as a very casual nod.

"The hell are you doing on my roof?" Ei demands.

(Sakura knows that his name is, to Kumo, Killer A, but there's this strange dinging noise in the back of her head whenever she thinks of him as A, and so she mentally goes with Ei instead. The pronunciation is identical, so nobody really knows.)

(She still has no idea why she can't think of him as Killer A.)

"Well," Sakura taps a finger to her chin, pretending to think about it. "I want to see your Jinchuuriki, because reasons. The fastest way to do that is probably to call them out for a fight, so I got the highest point I could and started shouting."

The Raikage doesn't seem convinced. "And if they actually tried to fight you?"

"I'd… fight back? Have a little fun? I'm not sure what you want from me on this front." Sakura does, of course, know what he's angling for, but answering like an asshole is more fun.

This is the reasoning behind around half of Sakura's decisions, these days.

There's a tingling at the edge of her senses, and she turns with a wide grin to face Yugito. The woman herself is standing on another roof, a few buildings away, and Sakura has to look down to see her. She has a wary look on her face, and stands like she is, indeed, ready for a fight.

"Hi!" Sakura calls down to her, waving rapidly. "Hi, Yugito!"

Yugito looks from Sakura to the Raikage and back. "Hello. Do I know you?"

"…Nooooooooo?" Sakura tilts her head, "But Matatabi-chan does."

There's stiffening all around. Awww, Sakura made them nervous. How cute!

Sakura jumps off the roof of the Raikage's office and lands in front of Yugito. There's still about three meters between them, but Sakura closes the distance qui—

Her head isn't attached to her neck anymore.

She'd forgotten how fast Ei was.

Sakura keeps her head and eyes very still, and listens.

"You killed her." Yugito says, sounding severely unsurprised. "I could have handled it, Raikage-sama."

"Someone sneaks into a village like that, calls out two Jinchuuriki? They've either got a death wish or can back their claims up." Ei snorts. "Damn well wasn't going to risk losing you to some random outsider, and if she had a death wish… just took care of it faster."

"The kid doesn't look worried." Yugito points out. "Is… is that a Rubik's Cube?"

There's silence for a few seconds, and Sakura tries very, very hard to not burst out laughing, because Isobu may be one of the nice bijuu, but he's very much picked up on the habits that she and the others have.

It's so much _fun_ to mess with people.

"Oi!" Ei calls. Sakura wonders if he's noticed that her neck isn't really bleeding as much as it should be. "Kid! I just killed your friend! Why the hell aren't you more bothered?"

"Sakura-nee-chan isn't dead." Isobu says.

"I took her head off!" Ei responds, sounding offended by the implication that he hasn't killed someone he set out to kill.

Isobu hesitates before continuing, clearly not too willing to say the relevant phrase. "That's step one. What about steps two through ten?"

Sakura is buying him _all the ice cream_ after this.

"What?"

"She's called Sakura the Deathless for a reason, you know."

Sakura takes that as her cue to start laughing. Making noise when you've been separated from your lungs is difficult, but she'd learned to deal a long time ago.

She'd also learned how to use chakra strings, because sometimes she didn't have anyone to help her get her head back to her body, and Sasori had been proof enough that you didn't _really_ need your fingers to cast chakra strings.

Sakura uses them to flip her head over so she can actually see the Raikage and Yugito, and kicks her laughter up another notch on the 'evil villain with a successful plan' scale. She reaches out with chakra and latches onto her body, maneuvering it into a standing position and flinging her head through the air to reattach herself to her neck.

"Surprised?" She finally stops laughing and grins at the Raikage and Yugito. In the back of her head, she feels the niggling sensation of Gyuuki getting closer. Good, that means Bee's on his way in. "Let me just say this: you done goofed."

"How the hell are you not dead?" Ei demands.

" _Fuck you_ , that's how."

She's making up for missing the opportunity to say Jashinist fuckbucket.

She's _more_ than making up for it, actually. That's like… an entire exchange she managed to work in.

Even Isobu got in on the fun.

Sakura smiles a bit wider and tilts her head to the side. "You got blood all over my dress."

Ei's eyebrows furrow. "You attacked my ninja."

"Did not!" Sakura whines and stomps her foot, hands fisted childishly at her sides. "I just wanted to say hi to Matatabi!"

"Sir, I really don't think that—"

"And how the hell do you plan on doing that?" Ei asks Sakura, cutting Yugito off.

Sakura is very tempted to repeat her earlier answer, but acquiesces. "There are ways to remove the bijuu's psyche without removing the chakra. The bijuu gets some freedom and a human form, and the host gets to survive. Everyone wins!"

"And I'm just supposed to believe that?"

Sakura tilts her head quizzically. "Where did you _think_ Isobu came from?"

She gestures back at the roof of the Raikage Tower, and the two Kumo nin she's been speaking with (as opposed to the several dozen that have slowly surrounded them since they started) turn to look at the small child they left behind.

Isobu looks up from his Rubik's cube for all of three seconds, and then goes back to it, ignoring everyone.

"Bullshit."

"You can always ask the bijuu your village has for confirmation." Sakura offers. "I know Bee has an open line of communication with Gyuuki."

Sakura gets the feeling that Ei wants to take her head off again, and is only refraining because he knows it won't work.

"Stop provoking them, Nee-chan." Isobu calls down. He still hasn't looked away from his cube. "You're making your job harder on yourself."

"But I didn't even _do_ anything this time!" Sakura protests. "I actually offered up a solution that didn't even involve me removing bijuu with zero warning like I did you!"

This is the moment at which Bee crashes the party.

This is also the moment at which Sakura immediately reaches out and knocks him unconscious with a fist to the top of the head.

(He's a jinchuuriki. He'll be fine.)

(Probably.)

(…Dammit, fine, she'll fix his concussion as soon as she doesn't get attacked for it.)

"Before you do anything!" Sakura turns to Ei and holds her hands up in the air, trying to forestall more murder attempts. "He's completely fine, I just didn't want to put up with the rapping."

Ei seems to be turning red with anger. There's a twitch in his face.

"You know, I can't even blame her." Yugito mutters.

"See, she understands." Sakura says, gesturing at Yugito.

"I do," Yugito allows, "but you just knocked out your quickest way of confirming your story."

Sakura opens her mouth, closes it, and considers this.

"Well, fuck." Sakura looks down at Bee and frowned. "Hold on, I'm not going to wake him up, but I should probably fix that concussion."

"Concussion?" Ei demands, and Sakura gives him a funny look.

"Dude, any time someone goes down from blunt force trauma to the head, it's gonna be a concussion. If they don't wake up within a minute, it's a _very bad one_." Sakura kneels to put a glowing green hand to Bee's head, and this time, she's paying enough attention to Ei that she can sense him attack.

Clearly, he'd rather have a medic he actually _trusts_ deal with the problem. Or just let Gyuuki deal with it, even.

Sakura still softly kicks him into the sky instead of letting him take her head off again. He won't be too hurt. Just some light bruising, maybe a broken rib. She can fix it. He's tough. He can deal.

"You know, you probably shouldn't attack the Raikage if you want him to trust you." Yugito says, coming close enough to sit within easy talking distance, but not within easy kicking distance.

"He attacked first. _Twice_. The first time he even _took my head off_." Sakura gives Yugito an offended look. She doesn't actually care all that much about the decapitation thing, but she very much cares about being _right_.

He attacked her first, dammit.

"You asked for a fight."

"But not with _him_." Sakura whines.

Bee groans from beneath Sakura's hands, which have long-since lost their medical glow, and both women look down.

"Little pink hit me in the head, kinda shocked that I ain't dead."

Sakura feels her face spasm, and she pushes Bee and gets to her feet. "Well, my work here is done. I should probably leave."

"I don't think she likes the raps, Bee." Yugito says, and the smile on her face indicates that she's gotten to the point of being amused now.

"Still gotta ask, you know, what'd ya do with my big bro?" Bee levers himself up onto his elbows and sends Sakura a look.

"That's actually a good question." Yugito frowns. "He'd should have come back down in less than a minute."

Sakura looks off to the side and pouts, mumbling something.

"What?" Yugito and Bee glance at each other, and back to Sakura.

"He's fine, I just put a seal on him when I kicked him." Sakura admits. "Lowered gravity. He's fine, but he won't come back down for another three or four minutes."

Yugito and Bee are both giving her looks now.

"What? He kept _interrupting me_." Sakura huffs. "And yeah, I don't usually mind all that much if someone attacks me, but _not in the middle of a medical procedure_."

Sakura changed a lot over the course of five hundred years. Her opinions on the seriousness of medical practices had not.

"My bijuu says to trust you, so I guess it's all true." Bee finally sits up fully.

"Can I take him out of your seal?" Sakura asks, relieved that the delays and bullshit are seemingly over. "I won't take out the majority of his chakra, because that would kill you and Gyuuki wouldn't be happy with me if I did that, but I can remove his psyche and a few shadow clones-worth of chakra and give him a human form, no problem."

"How?" Yugito asks, seemingly torn between amazed (because it isn't exactly a common skill), accepting (because Gyuuki said Sakura was okay), and suspicious (because Sakura).

"Fuuinjutsu and a _really_ long time to muck about." It's even true. This particular seal took her four years to develop. "He'll be able to return to you any time you want, by the way. I can create anchor seals so he can manifest elsewhere, but your body is where the mass of his chakra is situated, so it's the default zone."

"And it doesn't hu—"

"BEE! NII! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TWO DOING?"

The three of them look up to see Ei, who's slowly floating downwards, facing the ground with his arms crossed over his chest.

"I see what you meant about the lowered gravity." Yugito mutters.

"Don't be a fool, bro, Gyuuki says she's cool!" Bee gives his brother a thumbs up and a wide grin.

Sakura resigns herself to another half-hour of unamusing shouting.

(There's amusing shouting, and unamusing shouting. People being suspicious of her leads to the second kind.)

(This time it does indeed last _half an hour_ until Ei finally relents to the argument of 'actual bijuu trust her to do shit without hurting them or their jinchuuriki and there's informed consent to the procedure from all involved parties.')

(Or rather, Bee wears him down with raps about it that don't quite make sense, and Sakura has a feeling that half of Ei's reason for agreeing is to make him shut up.)

(The other half is that Ei just trusts his brother.)

"Finally!" Sakura claps her hands and pastes a grin on her face. "Yugito, I'll take care of Matatabi first."

She pauses, considers, and then shouts over her shoulder. "ISOBU! I NEED SOME SPARE CLOTHES FOR THEM!"

Isobu puts away the book he's reading (when had he switched from the cube? Meh, whatever), and hops down from the roof. He only really goes to the nearest clothing store, but it's still enough for Yugito to raise an eyebrow.

"I assumed you'd put up a barrier seal to keep people from interfering."

"I did. But certain people can get through, because I said so." It's definitely a lot more complicated than that, but Sakura's starting to get bored of Kumo nin and wants to get the whole thing over with. "Anyway, here goes, might be a bit uncomfortable!"

"Wait, wha—"

Sakura's hand slams into Yugito's stomach and the seal imprints. As with Isobu, chakra flows out and briefly takes the form of a full-scale, translucent Matatabi. When it swirls down into itself to take human form, Sakura smiles.

Long blue hair of varying shades, dark tan skin, and mismatched eyes that make it obvious where Yugito's eyes gained their slightly inhuman shape. Body type slim and muscled, if rather short, with round breasts. A dancer's body, really.

And a Cheshire cat's smile.

"Matatabi!" Sakura says with a grin of her own. She darts forward to give the humanized cat demon a hug, ignoring the very obvious nudity.

"Hello, Sakura-chan." Matatabi greets her, hugging back. "It's nice to see you again."

"Nice to see you too!" Sakura says, and then drops her hands down a little so her thumbs rest just inside the dip of her hips. "We can have some fun later, right?"

"No problem." Matatabit purrs, her eyelids dropping just enough to be sultry in a particularly feline manner.

Yugito coughs loudly to draw their attention way. Apparently, she's gotten over what little negative effect the seal had and the shock of seeing her bijuu take human form. "Ignoring the kind of relationship you apparently have with my bijuu, shouldn't you do Gyuuki now?"

"Yeah, okay." Sakura disentangles herself from Matatabi, who lounges back and waits for events to finish. Ei and Bee are very conspicuously not looking in her direction, which is hilarious to Sakura, because the day Matatabi cares about people seeing her naked is the day Sakura convinces her that burnt orange isn't really her color.

(It isn't. Matatabi's really bad at pulling off burnt orange.)

"Anyway, you saw the process with Yugito and Tabi-chan, so just stand there and look pretty, okay?" Sakura says.

He gives her a thumbs up and a grin, and says, "I won't move a jot from this spot, and I'll make sure to look super hot!"

Sakura stares at him until his smile starts to fade. She shakes her head and comes over, seal building on her fingertips, and repeats the process.

Gyuuki is… definitely different from Matatabi.

For one thing, Gyuuki actually looks middle-aged. Isobu's a child in form, and Matatabi looks like she's in her mid-twenties, even if she's pretty short, but Gyuuki looks like the kind of man that would run a bar for retired shinobi, and possibly even be one of them. Forties or fifties, it isn't clear, but definitely past his mid-life crisis and still willing to fight you.

He's picked up a lot from Bee and previous Jinchuuriki, because his skin is the darkest of all the bijuu's human forms, even if it's a bit warmer in tone, and his hair is salt-and-pepper greying, instead of blond like most Kumo nin. His jaw is narrower than what Sakura knows of his many jinchuuriki, too, with higher cheekbones and a widely-flared nose.

And plenty of thin, nearly invisible scars all over. Sakura's not sure where they came from, but she knows better than to ask; a bijuu's human form is one of their choice, so if Gyuuki chooses to have scars, there is a good chance they mean something.

"Yo," Sakura says, waving to him instead of running over for a hug. Gyuuki's a lot less accepting of public displays of affection than Matatabi or Isobu, or just affection in general.

(Sex is not affection, but a way to work off stress.)

(Sakura doesn't really care about his stance on sex vs. affection so long as he and his partner, usually Sakura herself, are both consenting adults with full information on the situation.)

"Get me some damn pants." Gyuuki says before anything else. "And stop making eyes at Matatabi."

"If I wanted to make eyes, I'd be in a lab with ocular sample cells and a hell of a lot of regenerative medical techniques," Sakura informs him, crossing her arms and sticking her nose in the air.

"That's not what I meant and you know it."

Sakura lets her own eyes get wide and amazed. "Did I?"

"Stop fucking around, Deathless." Gyuuki grumbles, and Sakura can _feel_ the amusement coming from Yugito, even if she isn't snickering the way Matatabi is.

"Fine," She relents, "But you should probably say goodbye to your Jinchuuriki for a bit. I've got errands to run and I already told them I expect y'all to come with me."

"Can't we spend a night here?" Matatabi asks, head tilted. "It's been a while since I've gone dancing."

Sakura thinks, for a moment, of just what kind of dancing Matatabi does, and considers how the night is likely to go.

"…actually, yeah. Let's go clubbing."

o.o.o.o.o

 **A/N: I'm not super happy with this chapter (the Hidan section ends awkwardly and the Kumo section dragged on forever and I can't write Bee's raps), but whatever.**


	4. Cracking

**A/N: Warning for references to stereotypes, mentions of mental illness in regards to Sakura, and ableism (** ** _by_** **Sakura) in regards to another character in the final scene. There's also cigarettes and sex.**

o.o.o.o.o

When it comes down to it, Sakura thinks they should be grateful that Bee ended up with Gyuuki instead of Matatabi.

Gyuuki may be a grumpy old bastard sometimes, but he's not as bad as Son Goku. He's gruff and perpetually a little annoyed, but ultimately, he has a good heart and he's down-to-earth.

Matatabi is polite and child-friendly and any number of things, and she's really no better or worse of a person (of a bijuu) than Gyuuki himself.

Except.

Sakura is very, very certain that pairing up Matatabi and Killer Bee would have resulted in nothing getting done, at all, ever.

Because Matatabi _really_ likes to dance. And while she likes all forms of dance, she has a particular fondness for… well, Sakura _thinks_ it's called b-girling, but she always gets such a long rant on the subject from Matatabi that she's never really gotten a straight answer. Whatever kind of dancing uses flashy, jerky movements to go with hip-hop and rap music or whatever?

The point is, Matatabi's interests in dance mesh very, very well with Bee's interests in rap, and that's a combination that can't be allowed to happen too often. Had they been paired together as bijuu and jinchuuriki, it would have become an endless cycle of music and dance, with no one around to rein them in and tell them "no, you have bigger things to worry about, like the ninja trying to _stab you_."

(The idea of Yugito and Gyuuki teaming up is slightly more terrifying, because then there would be _too much_ getting done.)

As it is, when Sakura agrees to go clubbing with Matatabi, it is with the full expectation that the bijuu in question will spend at least an hour geeking out with Bee, while Sakura deals with the political fallout of just randomly barging into Kumogakure the way she did.

Still, it's nice to see the cat again. Especially in such tight leggings. And the crop top. The wide, bulky sneakers and snapback don't hurt either.

Uh.

Sakura might have a little too much interest in Matatabi's clothes and what they're hiding underneath. Not that she hasn't already seen enough today. And it's not like she won't be seeing it all later tonight, either.

(Sakura had very limited option for bed partners after humanity died off.)

(The options she did have were… better than expected.)

"Stop staring, Deathless." Gyuuki grunts from next to her. "You don't have to take her clothes off with your eyes. We all know you'll be doing it by hand later anyway."

"Fuck off, Gyuuki." Sakura says cheerily. She lets herself lean over enough to mold herself against Gyuuki's side, though, sharing body heat. He's wearing plaid flannel and jeans, and Sakura almost makes a joke about a hatchet, because, well, _really?_

"You're laughing at me on the inside, aren't you?"

"Not at _you,_ " Sakura assures him. "Just your slightly ridiculous lumberjack aesthetic."

"It's not a lumberjack aesthetic."

"It's _totally_ a lumberjack aesthetic." Sakura argues back. "Because the only other aesthetic that contains quite that much plaid flannel is the Sapphic one, and last I checked, you were still identifying as male."

"Those stereotypes are ridiculous, and the Sapphic one doesn't even _exist_ yet." Gyuuki reminds her.

"Hence the lumberjack."

"I hate you."

"Love ya too, buddy." Sakura clinks her beer against his, and takes a long sip as she watches the dance floor. It's not as engaging as she'd been hoping, like she just can't join the flow as easily as she used to. It just… doesn't seem as fun as it used to.

"You okay?" Gyuuki asks in a low voice, and he's always been a little weirdly, gruffly sensitive.

"I'm fine." Sakura answers, and she might not be completely lying. "I'm… better."

"You've spent months with Isobu being the only person around you that remembers." Gyuuki reminds her. "And as soon as you got to Kumo you kept right on with the—"

"I'm _fine_ , Gyuuki." Sakura grinds out between grit teeth. She shoves away from the bijuu's side, no longer feeling quite so content, however temporary the feeling had been in the first place. "I'm going to join Matatabi on the dance floor."

Unconvinced eyes follow her out onto the floor.

o.o.o.o.o

Sakura double-times it back to Konoha after the stint in Kumo is over. They spend more time in Kumo than she'd expected or hope, if only because Gyuuki and Matatabi are insistent on getting some face-to-face time with their Jinchuuriki, Matatabi more so than Gyuuki, because the latter has always had a fairly good relationship with Bee. Gyuuki hasn't had a problem talking to Bee the past few weeks, but while Yugito's _control_ of Matatabi is near perfect, the lines of communication are not.

So Sakura waits and watches the calendar as the days tick down, and then slaps down a few seals, grabs the Bijuu, and hauls ass in the direction of _home_.

The bijuu watch her like they're scared she's going to crack, but she's lasted eighty years with no one but them and some summons. She can last a few more days before getting her best friend back.

In the back of Sakura's head, Kaguya laughs.

o.o.o.o.o

The Bijuu stay in Tanzaku Gai with the car, or head back to their Jinchuuriki with conveniently-placed seals, while Sakura heads in. She's wearing gauzy white again, a dress that shows off the seals on her collarbone and no others, but flows down and looks oh-so-civilian where it hangs. She even has a white paper parasol with three massive pink cherry blossom petals printed onto it, and she knows that now, not a single ninja over the rank of chuunin is fooled.

There are eyes on her from the second she enters the village, from friend and foe alike. Granted, Konoha doesn't _know_ that she considers herself a friend, but it doesn't matter. They don't attack, not yet, and that's all that counts. She books herself a room for the next three nights in a hotel that she hopes isn't going to be destroyed in the battle, and settles in. By eleven that night, she can sense a familiar chakra signature in the room above hers, and she smiles. Sure, five hundred years had dulled her memory of this man's signature, especially since she hadn't actually been a sensor when he died, but infiltrating the second exam had certainly refreshed her memory for a lot of people's chakra.

When he steps out onto the balcony to his room, she waits a few seconds, and then uses Shunshin to get up onto the roof. She lands just a few feet above and behind Sarutobi Asuma, who has indeed booked the top-floor room to spy on her.

He stills when she appears, and turns slowly to spot her. She suspects he would have done it all much faster if she'd been leaking any negative intent at all, but she wasn't, so he hasn't. She smiles down at him, not quite as bright as she does normally; it would seem out of place in the dim lighting of the night. She points at the box of cigarettes that he has in his hand, a lit one already in his mouth.

"Feel like sharing, Sarutobi-san?" She asks, and he wordlessly pulls one out and holds it up to her. She takes it and, before he can fumble around for his lighter, she snaps her fingers and the end lights up with a flare of fire-natured chakra.

(A few of the bijuu, she expects, would be rolling their eyes at her if they were here.)

(Sakura hosts a god just as well as any of the 90-year Pantheons, so she doesn't see why she can't make a joke out of emulating their tricks.)

"You smoke?" Asuma finally asks after watching Sakura lightly drag on the cigarette. "You don't really seem the type."

Sakura shrugs. "It serves its purpose, and I'm more than capable of handling the negative side-effects."

Asuma raises an eyebrow.

"You go to medic-nin to fix the medical problems caused by your coping mechanisms. I _am_ a medic-nin, so I can fix those problems myself." She crosses her legs and leans back against the slope of the roof, and looks up into the sky. There's too much light pollution to see most of the stars, but she can pick out a few, even with her still-natural vision. That's one thing she's never quite bothered to mess with; she likes her eyes too much to steal those belonging to someone from a doujutsu clan.

(Not that she needs it, when she channels Kaguya.)

(Not that she wants it, ever.)

"People are worrying about you," Asuma tells her, and there's a light scuff of sandals on roofing tile as he jumps up to join her and takes a seat, criss-cross. "No real word on whose side you're on, or what you're here for, that familiarity with Orochimaru… I think you can imagine the kind of message it sends."

"Hm," Sakura hums noncommittally, and then takes an extra deep drag on the cigarette that's pressed between her lips. Smoke fills her lungs, curling and killing even as it just barely touches her, and she pushes just a hint of chakra into it, suffusing it as well as she is able, which is very able and very well indeed.

She breaths out, and with twist and a push and a _pull_ of chakra, the smoke billows and consolidates and an ethereal dragon bursts from her lips, thicker around than the largest snakes in the Forest of Death, and longer by far. It spirals away, trailing around and across the sky, and she guides it to even dart through the streets at one point. She can't see people's reactions, but there's startled gasps and little surprised noises, and maybe a few coughs here and there. It climbs back into the sky, circles a few more times, and then dissolves into nothingness.

"Sarutobi-san, if I wanted to destroy Konoha, I could. Believe me when I say that I intend Konoha no ill will." She pauses, considers, and then amends. "Save for Danzo. Danzo can go fuck himself."

"…talking about an elder like that doesn't do much to make me believe you."

"He's an _ass_ , and more importantly to your interests, a traitor. He's been working with Orochimaru on illegal projects for decades, and ordered the Uchiha massa—"

Sakura's words cut off with a choke as a tantō embeds itself in her neck. Asuma manages to escape the ROOT ninja that aims for him, and disappears over the edge of the roof onto the busy street below.

Sakura rolls over and follows him down, yanking the blade out as she goes. Her dress is splattered with red when she lands, and the civilians around her are screaming. Asuma's staring at her in shock, because he saw the fact that the tantō had made its way in up to the hilt, all the way out to the other side of her neck, and that's not a wound someone can walk away from. Survive, in rare cases, but not walk away from.

Sakura seals up the wound and coughs. "Okay, so I really need to work on my situational awareness. That's the second time in as many weeks that someone's gotten at my neck because I wasn't paying attention."

"You…"

"Seriously, I might as well be the fastest person in the world, and it ain't gonna mean shit if I forget to pay attention." She massages her throat and glares up at the roof. "Ugh."

"You're not dead."

"No shit."

"… _How?"_

Sakura would probably love the chance to use this quote normally, but when she says it, she's nothing but pissed off. " _Fuck you, that's how_."

Her eyes land on the ROOT ninja and she bares her teeth before she shouts. "COME ON, YOU COWARDS."

"Ma'am, we're in a civilian area." Asuma reminds her, and the look she shoots him is nothing short of scathing.

"I can keep them from getting injured."

"Like you did yourself?"

"Okay, are we really doing this? Right… right now? Really?" The expression that Sakura sends Asuma's way is far from impressed.

"I'm pointing out that you may not be in the best situation for a fight."

There's a slight flicker of chakra from the rooftop.

Sakura's hand lashes out to the side and grabs a ROOT ninja just a split second after their Shunshin ends, fingers tight around the throat. It's not Sai. That's good.

She raises an eyebrow in Asuma's direction, and then drags the ROOT ninja around in front of, until they're almost nose to nose. "You can't kill me. No one can. Tell Danzo that if he wants to deal with me in any way whatsoever, he can do so _after_ the Exams. I have Konoha's best interests in heart, and he would do well to remember that _he_ is not Konoha."

Sakura releases the ROOT nin, who hesitates for a spare moment and then disappears, probably to report right back to Danzo. Asuma takes the chance to speak up from behind her.

"You do realize I'm going to have to—"

"Tell your dad whatever you want. I don't give a shit. If you want Orochimaru neutralized as a threat, then keeping me around is your best bet." Sakura looks over her shoulder, staring at him through her lashes. "I'm not joking when I say none of you can kill me. I'm not joking when I say none of you can capture me. I'm not being arrogant, and I'm not deluding myself. I'm better than I have any right to be, because I'm older than any sentient thing on the planet barring the Bijuu, some of the eldest summons, and one other creature. I _am_ the oldest human. I _am_ the oldest ninja. And I have the experience and skill to prove it."

She's turned around fully by this point, hands crossed under her chest and mouth pressed into a thin line. The more she gathers people around her and the more she has to deal with their shit, the more the manic cheer she's been using as a shield falls away. She can still enter that emotional state, of course; it's just as natural as any other.

But Sakura's always been a bit prone to emotional extremes, and right now, irritation is winning out.

"I'll see you tomorrow, Sarutobi."

She vanishes back into her room, puts up barrier seals strong enough to stop _everything_ , and sleeps 'til morning.

o.o.o.o.o

There's a tremble in Sakura's sternum that wants to infect the rest of her body with nerves, but she locks it down as she takes a seat in the audience. She can feel the prickle at the back of her neck of people watching her, but it's nothing to worry about. She's right at the front of the stands, with a perfect view of the arena, even if it's also technically the most dangerous spot other than down on the playing field itself.

(As if that _matters_.)

She leans forward to rest her elbows on the stone wall that keeps spectators safe from the danger of falling over the edge, and laces her fingers together. There's gum in her mouth, and she's blowing bubbles, but much like her mood, the taste has long since gone flat and left something rubbery and uncomfortably bitter filling her mouth.

She pops her gum.

She fidgets.

She waits.

She very conspicuously does not look up at the Hokage Box as she senses Orochimaru arrive.

She very conspicuously does look down, makes her eyes track over Gaara and Naruto as they traipse in, and lets a smile curl over her face as her gaze dances over the many children that had, in her own childhood, been her peers and closest friends.

"Is this seat taken?" A voice asks, and it's familiar, but another one that she hasn't heard alive in so long that she doesn't immediately place it. She doesn't look up as the person waits for an answer, just shrugs.

"Not that I know of."

"Pleasure to be here, Miss…"

Sakura smiles and says Deathless before she even turns, but the light in her eyes freezes, and the air in her chest stops, and her mind stutters to a halt, because she knows that mask.

"Oh, _fuck_ no." She breathes out. "I can't believe it. You came all the way here for little old me?"

"You don't look _that_ old," Obito says from behind his mask, sounding dubious. At least it isn't the Tobi persona, Sakura thinks. She doesn't know if she'd be able to keep it together if he were playing at being Tobi. She'd probably crack down laughing in the stands and accidentally destroy them as she pounded on the floor or something.

"Trust me, I'm absolutely ancient," Sakura assures him, practically on autopilot. "So, you planning on getting in the way of what I need to do?"

"That depends on what it is."

"Ah, well…" Sakura considers it. "It isn't something you'll have a problem with, once you have all the information."

"And you know that for sure?" Obito leans forward and kind of… _sprawls_ over the low wall. His arms are folded and his head is laying on them, and it's all done in an artfully messy way.

"Well, I know that _before_ you get the information you need, you'll probably just be confused and pissed." Sakura shrugs. "But afterwards… yeah. You'll approve. You already have, in some capacity, even if you don't remember it."

Hell, Obito had been one of the major contributors to Sakura's exploration of time-space techniques when she'd been trying to figure out how to get back to this point in time. He'd absolutely approved, given how much he'd helped with their understanding of the entirety of, well, physics.

(Sakura thinks he might get along with Orochimaru a lot more now, if they ever take a moment to talk science from that perspective instead of biology.)

"I see," Obito says, like he very much doubts it.

"Is it safe for you to be here?" Sakura asks instead of commenting. "I mean… there are a lot of sensors here, aren't there? What if they recognize you?"

He tilts his head and stares out at her from behind the black-and-orange mask he's wearing, disturbingly still. It's not the swirl mask, or the one he wore for the Kyuubi attack, but she knows it. He hasn't got his Akatsuki cloak on, either, but that body-armored, dark grey ensemble with the green scarf that he'd cavorted around in for a while, way back when. Way back now. Whatever.

"Ne, why would they recognize me?" He finally says, tone deceptively light and very, very pointedly daring her to reveal him.

"No reason." Sakura says with a smile that's just as pointed, as she turns to face the contestants again. They seem to be debating the legitimacy of Sasuke's entry, given that he isn't here yet. She waits a few moments, and then asks, "Hey, do you know what a trope is?"

"…yes."

"They have names, you know. They even named one after one of Konoha's ninja, can you imagine? I don't think Gai even knows that there's a trope called Dynamic Entry, but I think he'd be pretty honored if he did." Sakura waits just long enough for Obito to make another cautious noise of agreement, and then cheerily continues with, "Did you know that there's a trope called 'Dropped a Bridge on Him?' I feel like you'd find it relevant."

Dead silence from the man on her side. She reaches out and pats his hand, then pauses. "Oh, wait, you can't feel that, can you?"

Is… is it wrong to be revealing that she knows about Kannabi and the Zetsu grafts this rudely? She feels like there's something socially unacceptable about what she's doing. Probably.

Oooooh yeah she's not supposed to bring up traumatic experiences or disabilities gained in the field.

Hm.

Well.

Obito's an asshole and he's going to give as good as he gets as soon as he remembers.

(It's still a dick move, she acknowledges. Right now when he doesn't remember their usual dynamic, it's a dick move.)

(Well, mentioning Kannabi that way wasn't. Mentioning the trope was just the quickest way she could think of to communicate what she knew about his history.)

(The hand thing was definitely nothing but sheer douchebaggery on her part, though.)

"You know."

"Know what?" Sakura asks, playing just a little bit dumb in the most obvious way she can manage. "I know a lot of things."

There's the tiny sound of grinding teeth. "Who I am."

"Who are you?"

The kunai he tries to surreptitiously drive into her heart stops only an inch of the way in, her hand nearly crushing the bones in his wrist. He gives up on the attack and uses Kamui just enough to get out of her grip. He doesn't leave his seat.

Nobody seems to have noticed.

Sakura leans in towards him and smiles, putting in just the right amount of chakra to not only heal herself, but also to draw the blood back inside and leave her dress as cleanly white as before. He leans away, but she just smiles wider, and asks, "What's wrong, Tooooooobi?"

"…I'll see you around, Deathless." Obito mutters, and gets up to stalk away to the exit. Probably doesn't want to make a scene by using Kamui in the middle of a crowded area.

Doesn't want to give himself away while Akatsuki is still only just blossoming into the world.

Sakura closes her eyes and tips her head back to let the sun hit her face, and smiles.

For real, this time.

She almost has her people back.

o.o.o.o.o

 **A/N:** **The reference to lighting a cigarette with a finger-snap is from The Wicked + The Divine, a comic published by Image, written by Kieron Gillen, illustrated by Jamie McKelvie, colored by Matt Wilson, and lettered by Clayton Cowles. It's one of my absolute favorite comic book series, and if you have the time and access, I strongly urge you to give it a shot.**

 **I would like to make it clear that I do not, in any way, support Sakura's actions in regards to Obito's PTSD and disabilities in this chapter. She and Obito normally have a peculiar dynamic that involves a lot of ribbing in each others' sore spots, and she slips into that almost unconsciously. She's also still hovering over in "unmitigated asshole" land while she tries to deal with her shit, and is hurting other people because of it.**

 **In real life, no matter how awful a person is, trying to insult or mock them on the basis of a minority trait, like disability and mental illness, is inexcusable unless there is a VERY SOLID RAPPORT in place first, and both parties are aware of and respect each other's boundaries and have an understanding. (This is the situation that is usually in place with Sakura and Obito, as mentioned above.)**


	5. Forming

"I could have sworn we'd done this already…"

"For fuck's sake. She actually did it."

"She _is_ going to punch you, you know. Very hard."

"…I know."

o.o.o.o.o

So it goes like this:

The fights play out more or less the same way as they did the first time around, which is legitimately weird, in Sakura's opinion, since she _did_ interfere in the Second Exam. That should have at least changed a few of the match-ups, right? Left a team or two alive? She figures Destiny had something to do with it, but even though she's figured out a way to _quantify_ fate, she doesn't usually bother, and she won't this time either.

She closes her eyes when Sasuke and Gaara's match starts, and focuses on the sun warming her skin more than she does on the fight. When the first little tendrils of genjutsu reach out to snag at her consciousness, she smiles and breaks out with ease. She bundles her chakra tightly inside and vaults over the low wall and into the arena, striding to the middle and largely ignoring Genma, Sasuke, and the somewhat raging Jinchuuriki. She waits just long enough for the Suna and Oto shinobi to reveal their intentions, and then lets the coiled chakra blast out, waking up the arena.

This, she follows with a rather large amount of killing intent, enough to stall people, at minimum. It won't work on _everyone_ , since making it strong enough to affect people of high-jounin caliber would kill the civilians, and murdering civilians would leave a bad taste in her mouth. Killing _civilian_ royalty would just be bad for Konoha. She wanders over to Genma, plucks up his little microphone, and holds it a few inches from her face. "Ladies and gentlemen and variations thereupon! I am Sakura the Deathless! You may have heard of me, but probably not. You've probably guessed by now that I'm way the fuck out of your league. My suggestion would be to surrender now, because this invasion would be failing even without my intervention. I won't kill any of you, because reasons, but you should _really_ reconsider what you're doing."

She hands the microphone back to Genma, reaches up on her tip-toes to pat him on the head, and then makes a Shadow Clone to leave behind with Gaara and Sasuke, both of whom are staring at her in mild terror. She tosses the clone a small scroll, and turns away.

(Gaara is partially transformed into Shukaku, breathing harshly and with a wild look in his eyes.)

Sakura jumps up high, hundreds of feet above the stadium, and unseals a giant axe from the back of her forearm, lifting it over her head as she reaches the peak of her jump.

She wears a grin and lets out a war cry as she falls back down towards the Kage box, slamming the blade of her axe into the massive, translucent purple box.

Her world is, for but a moment, nothing but fire.

o.o.o.o.o

"So," the shadow clone that Sakura left behind drawls, leaning to rest her weight on one hip and crossing her arms. Unlike her original, her dress and hair are still immaculate. "I've got a question for Gaara."

The genin in question takes a step back, with a heavy noise coming from the movement that almost masks the sound of his labored breathing.

"I have the ability, with the help of fuuinjutsu, to remove the psyche of a tailed beast from the host without removing the tails or killing the host, and usually giving them a vaguely human appearance and size in the process. In your case, that would mean I get Shukaku out, so you don't have to listen to him anymore, while still leaving most of his power inside of you so that you don't die. The only requirement is that you don't attack Konoha."

Shadow-Sakura feels like this is a pretty fair offer.

"…why do you offer this?" Gaara asks in a voice that is far too much like gravel for such a small person.

"Let's just say I've dealt with that particular tanuki before. Extensively." Shadow-Sakura smiles at him and claps once, tilting her head and bringing her hands up to press against her cheek. "And wouldn't you like to get rid of all that screaming?"

There's a lot of screaming going on right now, actually, but… well. She'll deal with that later.

Gaara still seems unsure, and there's an explosion of sorts from the Kage box that has everyone but Sakura tensing up for a moment. Distantly, she notes that Naruto and her younger self have made it to the floor of the Arena, Shikamaru in tow. Kankuro and Temari, she senses, are closing in fast from behind her.

"We can do this the easy way or the hard way, Gaara-kun," Sakura says just before they arrive.

Gaara roars and attacks.

"Hard way it is, then." Shadow-Sakura sighs, then rushes forward, a seal building on her fingertips, and slams her hand into Gaara's stomach.

She wants to let Naruto talk him down, but hopefully, Naruto can do that _without_ Gaara going on a rampage that leaves countless dead and untold amounts of property destruction behind him.

Gaara screams as Shadow-Sakura drags Shukaku from the seal, the tanuki coalescing above her in a shape that is approximately also screaming, and then coalesces to… well.

(It's not usually so painful, but the seal on Gaara is a travesty in and of itself.)

Once, Shukaku had done as his siblings had, and taken a form that was almost wholly human. He'd taken a form that was pot-bellied and masculine, with short, shaggy hair and a nose that was perpetually red from all the sake he drank. Eventually, he'd grown tired of that form, and now…

There were people who entered the Uncanny Valley for a variety of reasons. Shukaku entered the valley by virtue of taking a form that presented halfway between human skin and finely ground, densely packed sand of varying shades, though the skin does appear mostly human and fairly tanned. His face is that of an old man, with eyes that are precisely as his jinchuuriki's appear when they channel him, all yellow and starred.

His clothing is robes made of ever-shifting sand, which appears to pour off him whenever he moves, but never, ever runs out. There's even a keffiyeh on his head, something that Sakura knows he doesn't need for protection from the sun as most of Suna does, but has picked up from living within their people for so long. She thinks that the sand-quartz shakujou clinking in his hand is there for a similar reason; his first jinchuuriki, she recalls, was a priest.

"Sakura," Shukaku breathes out, his voice like gravel on the wind, and there's a whimper from the ground as Gaara scrambles back, eyes wide and terrified. Shukaku glances at him for a moment, and then back at Shadow-Sakura.

"You've got a lot to make up for," Shadow-Sakura tells him, nodding to Gaara.

"Fix the seal so that I am no longer in agony, and I will… consider." Shukaku grimaces.

"I'll give you sake."

Shukaku barks out a laugh. "Three barrels, and you have yourself a deal."

Shadow-Sakura opens the scroll and unseals a bottle of sake. She tosses it over and quips, "Consider this a down-payment."

There are echoes of screams in her head, unintelligible but present, and she turns to look at the Kage box.

"What's wrong?" Genma asks, when it's clear that none of the kids are going to, and Shukaku's too busy with his alcohol.

"Kaguya's either very angry or very happy, and I can't tell which is more worrisome," Shadow-Sakura mutters, then shakes her head and turns back to the kids. "Gaara? I want you and Naruto to talk. You're both jinchuuriki, so maybe bond a bit. Shukaku, try not to fuck anything up,"

"Fuck you," he immediately responds.

"And you five," Shadow-Sakura gestures to the other children, "Back off."

"That all?" Genma asks.

"You're an adult, you can handle yourself," Sakura says dismissively. "I'm honestly surprised that you haven't left to join the fight yet."

"Jinchuuriki," Genma points at Gaara, and then at Shadow-Sakura, "Known volatile S-rank."

"Fair," she acknowledges after a moment. "And you haven't attacked me yet because…"

"You're way out of my league in terms of ability and you've only attacked Konoha's enemies on your visits, unless provoked by attempted murder."

"Also fair!" Shadow-Sakura claps and turns to Naruto. "So, same offer to you as Gaara: I can remove the mind of your bijuu from your seal, while leaving the majority of the power behind so that you don't, you know, die."

"And so that the bijuu doesn't choose to destroy the village again, right?" Genma prompts.

"Buddy, the only thing getting wrecked if Kurama gets out in a human form is my hotel bed." Shadow-Sakura pats him on the shoulder, and—

"Wow, okay, did not need to know that." Genma looks almost ready to laugh.

"There is an _invasion_ going on," Sasuke finally growls, apparently over his shock.

Shadow-Sakura pats him on the head. "That's nice. I told you to leave."

"I'm not going to leave!" Sasuke shouts. "My match isn't—"

" ** _I said leave_** ," Sakura growls, the weight of her killing intent crashing over the genin. They all still for a moment. "It's an invasion. It's dangerous for little genin like yourselves."

"I'm not a cowa—"

A noise like reality itself rending itself to bits occurs in the Kage box, and everyone but Shadow-Sakura turns to look.

"You want to know the level of fighter that comes out of that box? Me. Orochimaru. Your Sandaime. Also, by way of some nifty zombie techniques, there's unkillable versions of the Shodai and Nidaime. Running away from this to fight someone else isn't cowardice. It's _common fucking sense_."

Shadow-Sakura spins away and stalks over to Naruto. "Want your bijuu's mind gone or what?"

Naruto stares at her with wide eyes and glances at Genma, wetting his lips nervously.

"Uh… yes?"

"Awesome." Shadow-Sakura lets the seal build on her fingertips and presses it to Naruto's stomach.

Once more, a phantom version of the bijuu exists above them for a moment, and Konoha trembles in fear of an enemy they'd thought gone.

And then the chakra curls in on itself, coalesces, and leaves behind a naked Kurama.

His skin is darker than Matatabi's or Shukaku's, but not quite to Gyuuki's level. His eyes are red and slit, and the dark red hair on his head falls back in small dreadlocks, neat and probably only minutes away from a hair-tie for organization.

Sakura would offer him one herself, but she's a bit busy licking her lips lasciviously, eyeing him up and down with a grin and—

Tiny Sakura and Temari make offended noises bordering on screeches, and Sasuke and Shikamaru choke on their own spit. Nudity is apparently not something they are happy to see.

(Kankuro is watching the Kage box. Smart boy, that Kankuro. Gaara is watching in mild horror at the sight of how easy it is to remove one's bijuu, and Naruto is watching Kurama warily.)

(Genma's mistrustful, but just as appraising as Sakura, if slightly better hidden.)

(Shukaku is stealing her scroll for more sake, the drunk old bastard.)

Shadow-Sakura takes a step or two forward and drags her hands down Kurama's chest, biting her lower lip. She looks up and grins once she reaches his hips, thumbs pressing against the bones that are just barely visible around the hard, if somewhat padded, abdominal muscle that Kurama chooses to have as a human.

"This is rather… public." Kurama says, his voice low and deep.

"I'm not apologizing," Shadow-Sakura answers, pressing her fingers just a little deeper and leaning forward until her breasts are pressed up against Kurama's chest through the fabric of her dress. She misses the feeling of tight leather on Kurama's false skin, but the false skin itself is probably better, especially on that fine of an ass. "Would you like me too?"

"Only if you're going to follow through," he responds, and—

"What the _actual fuck_ are you doing?" Temari demands.

Kurama groans in annoyance and tips his head back and to the side, looking at Temari with ill-disguised displeasure. "Learn to read the mood, brat."

"Yeah, no, I'm pretty sure that's not the main issue here," Shikamaru mutters, so low that it's something of a miracle anyone can hear him with all the battle noises raging.

Shadow-Sakura laughs, spinning away from Kurama and letting her dress flutter around her. "Relax, we have all the time in the world. Don't you feel it?"

Kurama frowns, tilts his head, and—

"Oh no."

"Oh, fuck the hell _yes_."

Shadow-Sakura goes poof, and the shield over the Kage box _shatters._

o.o.o.o.o

The axe that Sakura brings down on the Kage box shield is enough to cleave open a weakness for herself, but not to destroy the whole thing. That, she's decided, comes later, when the major issues have been dealt with.

She slips through the gap, drops to the roof, and seals away her axe.

"Oh, fuck no."

Sakura pauses. Turns slowly. Looks at Tobirama.

"What did you just say?" She asks carefully.

(The others seem disinclined to get involved. Some are watching with wariness, other with amusement. At least one person, she's sure, is questioning her clothing choices now that the dress has burned away.)

"Listen," Tobirama says, bringing his hands up in a 'don't attack' motion. "I know you're angry."

"Holy fucking _shit_ , you _remember_." Sakura can't help the giddy smile that crosses her face. "You remember _everything?_ "

"Unfortunately."

Sakura keeps smiling for a moment, and then dashes forward and kicks him into the barrier. He essentially explodes

"THAT WAS FOR SAYING I COULDN'T DO IT, YOU PIECE OF SHIT!" She yells as she kicks his ass a little more, and then backs off so he can reassemble himself by way of Edo Tensei, and repeats. "I DID IT. IT FUCKING WORKED. HOW DO YOU LIKE ME NOW, YOU DICKWAFFLE?"

There are slight sizzling noises as he pulls himself away from the shield around the roof. He still hasn't fought back, probably because he can't feel pain.

"…ow," he deadpans. "That hurt."

"Oh, walk it off, ya damn zombie," she hisses. "I did it, you jackass. I won. I made the seal _work_."

"Indeed," Tobirama says, getting to his feet. "However, it has clearly done nothing for your _wonderful_ personality."

Hashirama is laughing his ass off.

Sakura cracks her knuckles as she comes closer, but is forced to dodge as she is nearly blindsided by the kunai that Orochimaru tries to drive into her throat.

"Well then," she says, skipping backwards. "That wasn't exactly a polite hello."

"Consider it payback," Orochimaru drawls. Kusanagi looks almost weightless as he wields it. "Shodai, Nidaime, no interference. Attack Sarutobi."

Sakura frowns as the zombies lose all visible emotion and turn to attack Hiruzen, who already has Enma as a staff. She refocuses on Orochimaru.

"You are going to feel very silly in a minute," she informs him.

"And why is that?" He asks, maneuvering Kusanagi in such a manner that he almost slices off her arm. An explosion goes off from where the others are.

"Well, you're going to know something that you didn't!" She jumps back as far as she dares, avoiding one of the trees that Hashirama has already summoned. "Might I request a momentary ceasefire?"

Orochimaru raises an eyebrow, and Kusanagi zooms for her, stopping at her neck. It floats independent of its wielder, blade mere fractions of an inch from her skin.

"This," Sakura says, unsealing a scroll, "Contains a memory matrix. Several hundred years of memories, and they belong to your future self. Care to take them back?"

"As though I would trust a stranger with something as important to me as my own mind," he scoffs.

"Fine," Sakura says, shrugging. "You weren't alive when I made these, of course, but I assume that you would be much like the other reformed villains, and would assume that I return your memories no matter what, due to the danger you pose to everyone around you."

She opens the scroll as she speaks, pulling out a swirling ball of white, translucent energy. It's the size of a soccer ball, but she compresses it down until it's barely larger than a grape.

"And what makes you think that—"

Sakura is in his space before he finishes blinking, pressing the memory matrix balanced on the tip of her finger to his forehead.

"I win," she whispers, as he drops to the ground, insensate.

He'll be down for several minutes, so she turns to the Edo Tensei zombies. If she recalls Orochimaru's preferred control seal from this era correctly, then the proper counter is…

She snaps by each one, planting the counterseal on the backs of their heads.

They stumble as they come back to themselves.

"Well," Hashirama sighs, "That was rather…un-fun."

"That's not a word, Hashirama." Tobirama grumbles as he tries to dust himself off. "Sakura! You couldn't have done that sooner?!"

"Let me have my drama queen moment!"

"People are dying!" Tobirama gestures at Konoha. "A _lot_ of people!"

"…everyone dies eventually." Sakura's voice is low. "A few years more or less isn't going to change anything."

A worried look flashes over Hashirama's face, but she studiously ignores it.

"Sakura," he starts, but never finishes, because a piece of cold steel digs through the back of her skull and out between her eyes.

Kaguya's seal holds true despite being sliced apart physically, but the seals connected to it are warning seals, and the noise they let off to remind Sakura that something is fucking _wrong_ are something akin to reality tearing itself apart.

She can't think for a moment, her brain trying to fire around the severed neurons. Kaguya is screaming, and she can't focus because her brain is sliced and Kaguya is screaming and laughing and—

Kusanagi slices out the side of her head, and while that makes things even _harder_ for a second, it at least means she can heal.

Which she does, of course.

"Mother _fucker!_ " She swears as her brain reconnects to itself. "What the hell!"

"What did you do to me?" Orochimaru demands, and wow, okay, gross. His body is like… rejecting him.

"I think the explanation in this case," Tobirama starts, "is that the fact that he's possessing someone is interfering with the memory reintegration process."

"Yeah, I was worried this might happen," Sakura says with a tight smile. "That's why I brought this."

She unseals Orochimaru's preserved future body onto the rooftop and waits.

The rooftop is very quiet save for Orochimaru's pained groans as he grips his apparently melting head.

"Tobirama, you wrestle him back into there. I've got a battle to end."

"What do you mean, you've got a battle to end?"

"I'm going to go take an enthusiastic walk through the woods."

"NO!" Both Senju shout.

"Relax," Sakura laughs. "I know what I'm doing, and there won't be any direct fatalities."

She walks to the edge wall of the box, fully aware of Hashirama hovering behind her shoulder and Hiruzen trailing cautiously behind, Enma still in staff form, asking Hashirama for more information.

She closes her eyes, blocks everything out, and opens Kaguya's gilded cage by an inch.

The skin of Sakura's forehead wrinkles and opens wide, revealing a blood red eye. Her hair bleaches and removes itself from its bonds, and horns grow from between the strands. Her normal eyes pale and lose their irises, and a blast of unearthly chakra and killing intent pour from her body and into the surrounding air.

(Kaguya's mind roils beneath Sakura's, and she feels her clone burst and return with memories, adding more chakra and mental power to the block against Kaguya.)

Sakura places a hand on the purple shield.

It shatters.

o.o.o.o.o

 **A/N: I have Shukaku wearing a keffiyeh because I wanted him to wear something distinctly "desert-life," and the keffiyeh was the best one I found for mentioning protection from the sun as a major issue without the piece necessarily being an indicator of religious affiliation.**

 **My design for Kurama here is lifted (with permission) partially from jam-art's humanized drawings for Kurama on tumblr. This art is why I can't imagine humanized Kurama without darker skin and dreadlocks anymore:**

 **If you feel like talking about the fic or just learning more about me, feel free to visit my tumblr, also under the username phoenixyfriend.**


	6. Breaking

Sakura's form _glows_ to the naked eye, shining with pale light as she floats upwards into the sky. Even her clothing changes, the brown leather disappearing between sheets of thick, stiff white fabric.

"Well, this is a disaster in the making," Hashirama says lightly, hands tucked into pockets. "Tobirama, do you think you could—"

"Busy, brother."

Hiruzen looks between the two of them, trying to ignore the squelching noises that are accompanying the… transfer of consciousness, he supposes. Orochimaru's body is still melting in a vaguely horrifying manner, and Tobirama is indeed very busy on that front.

"Maybe if you—"

"No." Tobirama cut his brother off before he went any further. "Last time I used one of your suggestions in a field of study that I knew better, eight of the clones caught fire."

"That wasn't my fault!" Hashirama protested.

"They're so water-heavy that they shouldn't even be _capable_ of burning, Hashirama. And you made them spontaneously combust."

"That's not fair."

"Yes, it _really_ is."

"Excuse me," Hiruzen interrupted, and pointed up at Sakura when he managed to get his predecessors' attention. "Should we be worried about that?"

"Oh, absolutely," Hashirama immediately replies. "Very worried. Her dragging out Kaguya is never a good sign."

"She hasn't done anything yet," Hiruzen said, cautious. "She's just… floating there. I'll admit she's putting out a rather unnerving quantity of chakra and killing intent, but nonetheless…"

"Sakura is most likely battling Kaguya for a reasonable measure of control at the moment," Hashirama says. "Soon as that's done, she'll do her best to end the fighting, and then it's going to be up to us to… tone her down to her usual levels."

"Orochimaru will be more useful to that end than Hashirama and I," Tobirama notes from his position over the still, pale body. Hiruzen can just barely catch the movement of the chest below Tobirama's hands, showing that the corpselike _thing_ that Sakura had pulled from storage was fully capable of life.

"So she isn't lying about the time-travel," he summarizes after a moment.

"Unfortunately, no. Fortunately, we now have the opportunity to modify events so that the issue that required time-travel in the first place is fixed!" Hashirama claps his hands and smiles.

Hiruzen almost asks, but that's the point in time at which Sakura begins to speak.

 _"_ _ **To all shinobi currently fighting, this is an order:**_ **stop** ** _. Lay down your weapons, and either leave or regroup. Care for your dead and dying, heal those who can be saved, and above all, stop fighting. If you do not, I will make you_** **wish** ** _that you had."_**

It does not feel like an empty threat.

Someone that is out of Hiruzen's range of sight throws a kunai with an exploding tag at Sakura.

And hand lashes out, palm raised in the direction of the kunai, and it disappears into a twisted rend in the fabric of space-time.

" ** _Stand down_** **,"** Sakura repeats, and suddenly Hiruzen feels like he's drowning on air, like the world is pressing down on him to a degree he's never felt before; he falls to his knees, unable to stay standing. " ** _Or I will make it hurt._** **"**

"Sakura…" Hashirama mutters to himself, sounding sad. "At least she's keeping it non-lethal."

"It's going to _be_ lethal if it keeps the medics from reaching their patients," Tobirama snaps, and then shouts at the skies. " _Oi! Enough with the gravity manipulation, you're hurting innocent people!_ "

Sakura's head, white-haired and horned and so many forms of _wrong_ , jerks sharply to the side to observe them. She tilts her head, staring, and then takes a deep breath as a shudder runs down her body. Gravity returns to its normal levels **_"Well, that's uncomfortable. Not changing my orders, though. Everyone stand down, or deal with me._** "

"Best we'll be getting," Tobirama sighs, going back to whatever the hell he's doing with Orochimaru's body.

"Kaguya was influencing her more than she wanted," Hashirama explains, as though Hiruzen somehow _missed_ that part.

"Does she actually have a plan?" He asks, instead of pointing out that he _is_ , in fact, a very experienced and intelligent old shinobi.

"Most likely not."

Hiruzen freezes, because Hashirama was not the one to answer that. He turns slowly, carefully, to see Orochimaru sitting up in the body that Sakura brought. He has a hand to his head, and looks haggard, but alive.

He is frowning at the sky.

"Orochimaru," Hiruzen breathes.

The man's eyes flick down to him momentarily, flicker with emotion for a fraction of a second, and then return to Sakura's floating form.

"She never plans as much as she should anymore," he says, standing up and taking careful steps forward, as though he's expecting to fall at any moment. "She hasn't needed to, of course, but it means she's gotten rather used to things working out no matter how little she plans."

"You knew her, in the future they keep mentioning," Hiruzen says.

Orochimaru glances at him again, then back to Sakura. "So did you. She found you less irritating than the others, if it helps."

Hiruzen frowns at that, and considers what little he knows of the situation. The conclusion is unfortunately very obvious. "That's Haruno Sakura, isn't it? Naruto and Sasuke's teammate?"

"Yes," Orochimaru answers simply. "An older, more tired, less stable version of her, one that the Sakura you already know will hopefully never become… but yes. The woman above us was once known as Haruno Sakura."

"And you? What did you become?"

Orochimaru tilts his head. He considers. "A better person. A better leader. A friend, and later one of the dead. There is very little to enjoy when the rest of the world is dead, you see. I wouldn't consider it a suicide, though she likely did. When you've already lived centuries longer than you should have, is it truly killing yourself if all you have done is allow death to take the hold it has attempted to grab in all those years?"

"Stop philosophizing," Tobirama says, coming up behind them and practically bristling. "And _help_."

Orochimaru gives him a side-eyed look, then sighs and steps forward. "Sound Four, drop the barrier. Fall in. Don't attack anyone."

There's a moment where nothing happens. Then, suddenly, the four teenagers that have been holding up the barrier shunshin in behind Orochimaru.

"Orochimaru-sama?" One of them asks. He's larger than the others, with bright orange hair in a strange style.

Orochimaru shakes his head. "Not now, children. I've work to do."

"But—"

"The invasion was a mistake. You will convince those who wish to continue to join in the retreat to Oto," Orochimaru cuts the girl off without even looking at her. "The woman in the air is immortal and powerful, and would make any attempts at a war very uncomfortable for all of us. She is also, unfortunately, a close friend of mine."

"You've never mentioned her," the boy with white hair says.

"For good reason," Orochimaru says, not explaining a thing. "Now, to end this…"

He claps his hands together, and Hiruzen _knows_ that Fuuton technique. Orochimaru's voice booms out over the entire village when he speaks, spreading out and reaching everyone without being so loud as to damage eardrums this close.

 _"This is Orochimaru. Otogakure, this invasion has failed. Retreat at once. Sunagakure, your Kazekage has been dead for over a week, at my hands. I would apologize, but I can say with certainty that I was not myself at the time_."

"Sarcastic little bastard," Tobirama mutters, arms crossed. "Accurate, of course, but still rude."

" _So it would really be in your best interests to stand down as well_ ," Orochimaru finishes, as though he'd not even heard Tobirama. " _Deathless… I'll be in contact. You know where to look_."

Orochimaru gives Hiruzen one last, inscrutable look. "She can give you the memories of what you did in those centuries, if she gave me mine. And… look after the children."

"What children?" Hiruzen asks before he can stop himself, but Orochimaru is gone, his skill dozens of levels above what it had been just minutes ago as they fought.

 _Centuries_ , they said. Centuries to train themselves up beyond what anyone could possibly do as a fighter.

He can believe it.

o.o.o.o.o

Sakura throws her head back and laughs.

 _Gods_ , but it's nice to have a friend back. He'd ditched her almost immediately, of course, and she's going to kick his ass for that, but he's here. He remembers. He's _hers_ , and she's not letting go.

Her laughter echoes around the village, bouncing off of walls that aren't there (have never been, but will be, unless she changes things in ways she almost certainly will and oh won't _that_ be fun). Her hair is pure white, straight as an arrow, and longer than she is tall, and it fans out around her like a peacock tail as she lets herself float down towards the arena. Tobirama and Hashirama are heading for her, Hiruzen and a pack of ANBU close on their heels, and the children that _still haven't left the arena_ are staring at her in horror.

" ** _I told you to run_** ," she breathes out as she comes to a rest on the ground, head tilting to the side.

 _Ashura and Indra,_ Kaguya says, pacing her cage, eyes alight with interest. _My grandsons._

 **Not quite** ** _,_** Sakura thinks back. " ** _Why have you not run?_** "

"What are you?" Sasuke demands, taking an aggressive step forward.

Sakura looks dismissively at him, and barely flicks out a hand to repel him backwards with a minuscule gravity push. He only goes back a few feet, but it's enough to get a look of shock out of him. **_"Not now, little Uchiha. You'll know everything eventually, just. Not. Now._** "

She laughs again, a noise like shattered bells, all a'shimmering and sparkling and a _shining_ noise that's still broken and cracked all over.

The shinobi all take a large, nervous step back.

"Gonna keep looking like my grandmother, Deathless?" Kurama asks. He does not appear to have found any pants. He does not appear to care.

" ** _Until the situation stops suiting me, sure,_** " Sakura quips, and it feels weird to say while wearing Kaguya's look like this, but it's not a new thing.

 _My boys,_ Kaguya insists, drawing Sakura's attention back to Sasuke and Naruto. _Let me see them_.

 **No.**

 _LET ME SEE THEM._

 **FUCK OFF, YOU OLD HAG.**

"Still suiting you?" Kurama asks, coming closer. "Or is it starting to get to be too much?"

" ** _Oh, shut up._** "

Light footsteps hit the ground behind her.

"He's right, much as I hate to admit it."

Sakura turns to look at Tobirama, unimpressed. " ** _That so?"_**

"People are leaving the village, Deathless. The invasion is over, or close to." Hashirama makes his way closer, careful. "Haven't you done as you said? Isn't it time to stop?"

" ** _Is it ever time to stop?_** " Sakura asks. " ** _There are many ways in which a life improves with more power._** "

"Think it's time to let Kaguya stop playing with your head?" Tobirama asks back, taking another step forward. "Or are you letting her take over once and for all?"

"You know that isn't going to work," Kurama says.

"Shut up," Tobirama says, not even bothering with propriety.

" ** _He's right, though. Kaguya isn't taking over. I'm just taking from her!_** " Sakura laughs and spreads her arms, tossing her head back and spinning on the spot. " ** _Power like this, it's exhilarating, don't you think?_** "

"I think you need to stop and reevaluate yo—"

Kurama cuts Tobirama off. "You're not going to get laid if you keep looking like my grandmother."

Sakura rolls her eyes at that, but it is one of the few things that's undeniably less pleasant about thi—

 ** _"Oh my fucking god_** ," Sakura whines, dropping her head into her hands. " ** _I thought I was done with this bullshit_**."

"Back to normal yet?" Shukaku asks, his gruff whisper of a voice carrying easily over from his seat against the wall. "Or do you need more threats of chastity?"

" ** _Oh, fuck_** **off you dr** unk old bastard," Sakura mutters, gradually returning to his usual appearance. She keeps rubbing at her head, ignoring Kaguya's screams. "Clever old bitch just keeps _trying_."

"Well, yeah, that's what happens when you seal away the woman who tried to take over the world," Shukaku says.

"The most powerful entity to ever walk this planet," Tobirama continues. "Now, if you don't mind, I'm still feeling a little uncomfortable with our current states."

Sakura gives him an odd look. "What are you talking about?"

"We weren't made using Zetsu clones," Hashirama explains. "We'd prefer to _not_ be made using the corpses of children."

"Fair enough," Sakura says, sighing and ignoring the spluttering noises of the nearby living children, Genma, Hiruzen, and the ANBU. She looks down at her bare arm, covered in swirling storage seals, and presses her fingers to one. "I'll take care of Hashirama first. Someone go fetch the last coffin."

Tobirama disappears, and Sakura approaches Hashirama with one hand outstretched. "Shodai-sama."

"Deathless," he acknowledges with a smile. He ducks his head so that her hand can press to it. "I place myself in your care."

"Let's hope you don't regret that," Sakura mutters. Her other hand is on the storage seal for the Zetsu clone, ready to draw it out as a replacement sacrifice for the child she is about to free.

She closes her eyes and focuses on the chakra of the child within Hashirama. She does not remember the girl's name, though her voice and face are seared into Sakura's memory, centuries back. The girl that led to Sakura cutting her own hair and sacrificing her vanity for her career.

She was little more than a child when she died. Sakura will make sure that the girl doesn't pay for the mistakes of the Orochimaru of old.

Sakura unseals Zetsu.

In the same movement, she draws Kin from Hashirama's innards. The girl is screaming in agony.

She replaces the girl with Zetsu seamlessly, before the creature can even speak.

Hashirama stumbles a little, blinking.

Kin collapses to her knees, clutching at her chest and sobbing. She looks up at Sakura and scrambles away from her.

The children back away, eyes wide with terror and confusion. Tiny Sakura's eyes are particularly wide, focusing on the girl who tormented her in the Forest of Death.

"You'll be fine, girl," Sakura scoffs, and turns to Tobirama and the coffin that holds Minato. "Now, who's next?"

o.o.o.o.o

Sakura disappears as soon as she's assured herself that none of the Oto brats are going to be hurt. She has a soft spot for the village that destroyed itself time and again because it just kept taking in the broken and baseless. She has a soft spot for the children that let themselves be cut to pieces for more power just because there was no other way, no other choice, no other place to call home.

(She ignores the awkwardness that is Hiruzen and the zombies, the awkwardness that is Tiny Sakura's eyes on her, the awkwardness that is Minato and Naruto, the awkwardness that is the bijuu given human form sitting expectantly just a few meters away from their Jinchuuriki, the awkwardness that is the dead coming back to life and an unknown foreigner destroying an invasion.)

(She. Ignores. Everything.)

She disappears and makes her way to the base of a massive tree just a few miles outside of Konoha. She is good enough at hiding her chakra that none there will sense her, save perhaps Karin, if she's still in Konoha and at that level already.

"You're hard to find," a gravelly voice says behind her.

"Not really," she practically hums the words, not looking. "I just didn't leave until just now."

"Taking care of loose ends?"

"A few."

Orochimaru takes a careful seat beside her, chakra just as carefully coiled and hidden away as her own. She doesn't have to look to know that he's already pulled his hair back into an elegant bun, and is running his fingers absentmindedly over the curve of one purple tomoe earring. "You're angry."

"Furious."

"You found a way back."

"It took me _eighty years_ , Oro," she says, and she's not ashamed to hear her voice crack on the words. "Eighty years with just bijuu and summons and clones to speak with."

"Edo Tensei clearly worked."

"You were my best friend, Oro. And you made it so I couldn't even bring you back to ask why you left."

"I had my reasons."

"I'm sure I'd _love_ to hear them," she laughs. She knows he can hear how bitter she feels about it. He'd be a fool not to.

"I'm not sharing, dear."

"Typical."

They sit in silence for a few moments, and then he puts a hand over hers. "Sakura."

"Don't you dare."

"Sakura, _look_ at me."

She takes a deep breath. She does not look. She stares ahead to a tree that is greener and leafier and healthier than it will be in five hundred years.

"Sakura, I'm _sorry_."

"Too little, too late."

"Sakura, you know what it was like, then. You know how much it hurt, to have failed, to be alone at the end."

"I wasn't alone until you _left_."

"As good as."

"You _died!_ " She shouts, and there's a hot wetness on her face. Her fingers dig into the wood of the tree behind her, tensing despite herself. "You chose to die! You _chose_ that! You _chose_ to leave me alone so I'd lose my mind all over again!"

"Sakura—"

"There is _no excuse!_ " She shouts, getting to her feet and whirling to face him. She knows she's crying. She can feel her cheeks turning a blotchy red already. "There is _no excuse_ for leaving the way you did! You knew what would happen to me! You knew the summons and bijuu and Edo Tensei wouldn't be enough, and you _left me anyway!_ "

"Sakura," Orochimaru breathes. "Sakura, I _had_ to. I _had—_ "

"Bull _shit!_ " She screams. She's already lost her temper, she knows, but she will not hurt Orochimaru. She will damage nothing. "Bullshit! You _had_ to do nothing! You could have helped me research time travel! You could have helped me figure out a way to cleanse the world and bring life back with cloning technology! You could have taken me with you, or at least left Edo Tensei as a way to call you back! You _had_ to do nothing!"

"Sa—"

"You _left me there!_ " She doesn't care that she's repeating herself. She doesn't care that there are tears streaming down her face, or that her voice is already hoarse. She doesn't care, so long as he understands. " _You left me in a living hell!_ "

"S—"

"And you have the _audacity_ to say that you _had_ to do it?" She demands. "You think that excuses _anything?"_

" _Sakura!_ " Orochimaru finally shouts at the top of his voice. "My children were _dead_. My teammates had been dead for _centuries_. I'm sorry I left you, but I was never solely responsible for _your_ mental health, not when mine had been taking tolls of its own for my entire life. I am _sorry_ , that I left you, and I am _sorry_ that you dealt with what you did, but I chose to die because _I could not bear to go on._ "

" _Eighty. Fucking. Years_." Sakura's teeth were grit, and she _hissed_ the words through them. " _EIGHTY. FUCKING. YEARS. I SPENT ALONE._ "

"Bijuu and summons and Edo Tensei," Orochimaru argued back.

"They don't count!"

"Don't they? What difference is there between me and an Edo Tensei, Sakura? What difference was there between my living presence and their dead ones, other than a pulse?"

"Because you're _you!"_ Sakura screamed. "You're _you,_ you asshole! You were my best friend for almost four hundred years! You were the _only fucking constant_ in my hell of a life! It may have never been romantic or sexual like I joked, but dammit, I loved you and you _left me_. There were others that could help me with my research or reminisce or whatever the fuck you think I was doing with the Edo Tensei, but how the hell can you think I _wouldn't_ miss my _best fucking friend?_ "

She stopped talking then, and just took deep, heaving breaths. Her fists were clenched at her sides, chakra visibly dancing over the surface but not actually touching anything, and she could feel herself shaking. She couldn't see Orochimaru clearly through her tears, but she could see _enough_.

"…I'm sorry, Sakura, but you were never my _responsibility_. I broke. I'll admit that I broke. I know that what I did hurt you, but by that point, all I cared about was making it all stop. I wish, and dearly, that you didn't have to go through that. That you'd found a way back sooner, or that you'd found a way to die as well." He takes a deep, audible breath. "But I will remind you that my mental health and yours are two very different things. I am not a selfless creature, Sakura. I chose my own death to avoid a worse life, and while I am sorry that I left you in that position, I will not allow myself to regret what I did."

There is a pregnant silence, and Sakura cannot breathe.

She cannot force her lungs to work.

She feels as though she is drowning.

There.

Is.

No.

Air.

(She will not die.)

(She cannot die.)

(No matter how much she wants to.)

"Sakura?"

She finally takes a deep, shuddering breath, and collapses to her knees.

She will not feel ashamed for this. She refuses to feel ashamed, even as she sobs, taking in deep, jagged breaths that come back out as high-pitched keens and wails. Her hands clutch at her chest, digging bloody furrows into her neck and collarbone as she struggles to find some kind of purchase, something to ground her.

Sakura cannot calm herself.

She wishes she could.

"I am sorry," Orochimaru repeats, and comes to a stop in front of her. He gets to his knees and wraps his arms around her, pulling her into his lap as she cries out eighty years of loneliness, centuries pain and heartache. He pats her on the back, smooths her hair, whispers the same meaningless comforts he once spoke to his children after nightmares or first battles.

Sakura cries her heart out in the lap of the person she once considered her greatest enemy, and now considers her greatest friend.

"I forgive you."

"Thank you."

"But I can't let it go."

"I'm sorry."

"I know."


	7. Returning

**A/N: Sorry for taking so long. School, other fandoms, and the charity musical I'm doing are taking precedence. Actually, if you could check the musical and our production out, I'd be pretty happy; the show is in NYC, but we're filming it so people outside the city can watch.**  
 **Feel free to look us up on tumblr or facebook as TeaTime4MadGirls or TeaTimeForMadGirls.**

 **Anyway, if you happen to be a Firefly fan, go check it out!**

 **o.o.o.o.o**

"This is bullshit."

"Your face is bullshit."

"Thank you, Matatabi, for that thrilling contribution."

The bijuu grins up at Sakura from where she has her upper body sprawled across the table. "You got Oro back, Sakura."

"I did," she acknowledges. "But he has a village to revitalize and—"

"And you're going to avoid him now that you've shouted at each other?" Isobu asks, blinking innocently when Sakura shoots him a glare.

"You shut your mouth."

Isobu shrugs and takes a bite of his cookie, still exuding purity.

"We are here for a reason," Sakura begins again, magnanimous in her own mind. "Do we all remember what that reason is?"

"Choumei," Gyuuki grunts, folding his arms across his chest. "Once we have her…"

"Then it's just picking up the two from Iwa, finding whoever's got Saiken right now—"

"Utakata," Isobu tells her.

"—and then going back to Konoha to pick up the slackers." Sakura claps her hands. "Right, any ideas?"

"We could just… kidnap Fuu," Matatabi drawls. "Her home life isn't particularly pleasant, from what I've heard."

"Old enough to have ingrained loyalty by now, though," Isobu points out. "I remember her being pretty cheerful and friendly, though. We can probably get away with just talking to her."

"Oh, that's boring," Sakura says, pouting.

"Oh no," Gyuuki drawls, "We're not going to risk killing anyone in the crossfire. Whatever shall we do?"

"Fuck?" Sakura suggests innocently, and then grins as Matatabi collapses into giggles.

"Five hundred years and you still have the sense of humor of a twenty-something civilian boy," Gyuuki sighs.

"Boo you, whore," Sakura says with a smile.

"Really? Mean Girls?" Matatabi asks. "Isn't that a little overdone?"

Isobu coughs into his fist, waiting for everyone to turn to him. Then, he smiles, and Sakura can already tell she's going to love what comes out of his mouth.

"Let's go steal a bijuu."

She's right. She absolutely loves what Isobu says.

She gives him a hug.

o.o.o.o.o

"Hello," Isobu says, standing right in front of Fuu with his hands folded in front of him. "You are the Nanabi Jinchuuriki, yes?"

Fuu cocks her head to one side, ignoring the bristling of her comrades at her sides. "Yeah? What's it to ya?"

"Can you speak with your bijuu freely?" Isobu asks, testing.

"Excuuuuuuse me?" Fuu responds, tilting her head. "What's that s'pposed to mean?"

"Do you and Choumei ever speak?" Isobu tilts his own head in response.

"Uh… not for a while," Fuu talks like a child, drawing out her words in something that would be a whine if not for the flat confusion. "Whatcha want with Choumei?"

"I am Isobu." He does not continue.

Fuu stares at him for a long moment, and then closes her eyes.

"What do you think you are doing, little boy?" One of the other Taki shinobi demands.

Isobu's eyes slide over almost dismissively. "Talking."

The man bristles, but Fuu's hand snaps out and lands on his chest, holding him back. Her eyes open more slowly, almost hazy as she looks at Isobu, considering.

"You ain't human."

"No, I am not."

"Huh." Fuu puts her hands on her hips and eyes him. "It's been months since I spoke with my bijuu, y'know."

"I suspected."

"Where's Deathless, then?"

"Waiting for your decision."

"I don't get much of one, buddy."

"Still."

Fuu grins and drops to the ground, legs crossed. "Alright, then! Let's do this!"

Sakura shimmers into existence behind Isobu, one hand on his shoulder.

She smiles.

"Hey, kiddo."

o.o.o.o.o

There is, unsurprisingly, a small delay as the Taki shinobi take offense to the interaction and attempt to kill them.

It's a game to take them down, painlessly, bloodlessly, temporary as anything.

Sakura makes sure that there is no lasting damage.

They will remember nothing of this occasion when they wake.

o.o.o.o.o

Choumei, when she looks human, has skin that many would describe as dusky. Darker than Matatabi but still not at Kurama or Gyuuki's level, her look is one that isn't seen much in the parts of the Hidden Continent that Sakura currently frequents. Desi, perhaps? Her face is aristocratic, almost delicate, with a straight nose and high cheekbones and eyes that sparkle in the light. Those eyes would be called lovely if not for the inhuman color scheme.

It's clear where Fuu's orange eyes come from; or maybe it's the other way around, that Choumei took inspiration from Fuu when designing her human form. In any case, her eyes are the same color as her jinchuuriki's, though unnaturally reflective, and her hair is the same dark blue as her true form's exoskeleton, all shiny and smooth. Orange eyes wouldn't even be that strange, but Choumei takes her delight in unnerving people, and so her sclera are the same bright green as her wings and Fuu's hair.

She gets to her feet with a wide, unnerving smile. "Hello, Deathless."

"Stop joking around, Choumei." Sakura tosses her some clothing, and Choumei laughs as she catches it.

"Ne, Sakura-chan! That's really rude, you know." She sticks out her tongue even as she starts pulling her clothing on. "Telling me to stop joking around when we all know what you're like."

"Hashtag rude," Sakura scoffs, but she doesn't hold back her grin when Choumei laughs again, like tinkling bells.

"Aw, you got my favorite!" Choumei says once she dressed, twirling on the spot. The dress floofs out, knee-length and huge, with more petticoats than Sakura would normally give anyone. There's some kanzashi in her hair, silver with rainbow gems and chains, sparkling in the light as it swings about.

She looks young, still, maybe seventeen. Older than Fuu, and older than Isobu's chosen form, but still. Young.

Sakura stands back and watches as Choumei spins and squeals and catches Fuu up in a hug, spinning her around.

Fuu laughs, too.

She squawks as she gets set back down, and rears back as Choumei gets in her face.

"You're not allowed to die this time around, m'kay?"

"Wha'ever you say, ma'am," Fuu says, blinking. "Where're you guys heading after this?"

Choumei pouts, lips twisting up to one side, and turns to look at Sakura. "Plans?"

"I was thinking we go get the dolts from Iwa and Saiken, head back to Konoha to pick up the slackers and zombies, then make a road trip out of it," Sakura admits.

"We're going to need a bigger car," Isobu reminds her.

"Hit up Yuki first, then."

Choumei shrugs and then turns to Fuu. "Apparently we're doing that."

"Can I come with?"

Sakura blinks as both girls turn to look at her.

"Uh… sure?"

o.o.o.o.o

"We picked up an extra person."

Gyuuki looks up from his beer, raising one eyebrow. Matatabi perks up a little, no longer slouching in her seat as she was when they walked in.

"Ooooh, hello, little thing." Matatabi purrs. Sakura momentarily panics, but Matatabi just pats Fuu on the head with a smug grin. "We're keeping this one."

"Yes, well, that was the plan."

"No, no, I'm telling you that we're keeping her. She's ours. We're your family now, brat."

Sakura has no idea what's going. "Are these, uh, maternal instincts, or…?"

"Absolutely. Do you have a mom? Doesn't matter. I'm your mom now." Matatabi pulls Fuu closer, which looks mildly hilarious if only because Fuu is already an inch taller than Matatabi is. "Mine now."

Fuu glances at Matatabi, then at Choumei and Sakura, who are hiding smiles. She shrugs. "Hers, 'pparently."

Sakura laughs.

o.o.o.o.o

Fuu isn't allowed out of anyone's sight for a few days, because this is the first time Sakura's stolen an actual person, and even for the bijuu she's taken so far, she's gotten the village leaders to say yes first.

"We should go pick up Kurama," Choumei says. "Y'know, if we're not going to be going directly for the others."

Sakura makes a face.

"I'm sure Orochimaru's fucked off back to Oto by now," Choumei assures her.

"The zombies haven't."

"Your fault, your responsibility."

Sakura's frown changes to a plain old pout as she droops over the table. "I don't want to deal with them."

"Too bad."

"C'mon," Matatabi says, a smile on her face. "We all know you're hoping for some alone time with Kurama."

Sakura can't really argue that one.

Fuu looks between the bijuu and Sakura, and then turns to Choumei with wide eyes. "Are they talking about sex?"

Choumei laughs. "Yep! Sakura's… very fond of sex."

"Darling, are you slut-shaming me?"

"Just a little!"

Fuu puts her hands over her ears. Sakura tilts her head in response, because what?

"I'm fourteen," Fuu says, utterly blunt. "I don' wanna hear about your sex life."

Isobu takes her by the wrist and heads for the door to their hotel room. "I don't want to listen to that discussion either."

"Same!" Choumei calls as she bounds after them, catching up as they exit into the hall.

Sakura looks between Matatabi and Gyuuki, then grins. "So… who wants to get lucky tonight?"

None of the bijuu would ever agree to a threesome that involves one of the others, but good half of them are willing to sleep with Sakura if she's in the mood when they are.

"Any preferences?" Matatabi asks, smiling with her eyes half-lidded as she leaned closer.

Unfortunately for her, Sakura's eyes flicker over to Gyuuki. He raises an eyebrow.

Sakura gives both bijuu an almost apologetic shrug. "Sorry, but… I haven't actually had much dick since I got back from the future. Plenty of sex, but it's almost all been vaginas. Which, don't get me wrong, I love having sex with people who have pussies, but I want me some gorram penetrative genitalia once in a while."

Matatabi drops her face into her hands and tries to smother her laughter.

"Did you really have to put it like that?" Gyuuki asks, almost groaning.

"Is that a 'no?'"

o.o.o.o.o

Sakura gets some dick that night.

o.o.o.o.o

They do swing by Konoha, because Sakura trusts the bijuu when they say that trying to get to the Iwa duo right now would be a terrible idea.

"What's up sluts, guess who just got out of prison!"

Minato drops his zombie-cracked face into his hands so as to stifle a groan. Tobirama doesn't, but he closes his eyes and looks like he might be dying inside a little.

"What happened?" Hashirama asks, looking legitimately worried. That's cute of him.

"She got locked up for a drunk and disorderly," Matatabi says, pushing her way past and flopping down into an over-stuffed armchair. "It was just the drunk tank, and she broke out like thirty seconds before they were planning to let her go."

"Because…?"

"Because I could," Sakura says, taking a few steps over so she can sling an arm around Minato's shoulders. "So, how's bonding with your baby boy been going?"

Minato makes a face. "I understand why you've been unstable since coming here."

Sakura's smug grin dims. "Ah. You've figured out how bad it is when they don't remember."

He looks more concerned than annoyed, eyes tracing over her face as he pulls away from her. "Are you okay?"

"Better than I was." And that's as much of the truth as she's willing to say at the moment.

"Ahem," Hiruzen coughs into a fist, and the room turns to him. He eyes them all with a bone-deep tiredness. "You're all in my office, and I still haven't received an explanation for anything. I believe I've been quite patient with you all, but this is really getting out of hand."

"I'm a time-traveller."

The sound of Tobirama's palm meeting his forehead is an audible smack, even amongst the giggles from Choumei, the bark of laughter from Matatabi, and the tired groans and sighs from the others.

"…I was already aware of that, Haruno."

Sakura smiles, small and condescending and maybe a little brittle, if she's being honest with herself.

(She's not.)

She slips a hand up one wispy white sleeve, unseals a scroll from the crook of her elbow, and lays it out on the desk.

"What's this?"

"Memories." She taps one finger against the parchment, not quite nervous, but… close enough. "Including yours."

"Of the future that isn't."

"Yes."

Hiruzen eyes her in silence for a long moment, and then sighs and pulls out his pipe, lighting it with a wordless, signless Katon technique.

"You've put me in a very uncomfortable situation, Haruno."

"I mean…" She shrugs. "I do that to a lot of people."

"And then don't stick around to deal with the consequences."

She almost feels guilty, at that, but… well. It's deliberate, these days.

Hiruzen's gaze lays heavy on her anyway.

"Haruno."

"I'm not sure what you want from me," she admits. "I'm just here to pick up the humanized bijuu I left behind last time. Get them out of your hair, so to speak."

Hiruzen's face twists up. "I can't trust you."

"Yeah, that's a pretty common sentiment."

"You could test the memory transference on someone else, if that's what you're worried about," Tobirama suggests. He sounds bored. "She certainly collected plenty before coming back."

"You're suggesting I risk the lives of my subordinates on—"

"No," Tobirama cuts him off. "I worked on those seal matrices myself. I know they work, and I know they're safe. I wouldn't be suggesting you try them on someone at random unless I was absolutely sure they would work. And they will."

Sakura grins and holds out a fist, urging Tobirama to bump it.

He scoffs and looks away, dismissing her.

Minato takes a step closer and fist-bumps her in Tobirama's place, flashing her a bright smile as he does so.

"Stop being cute," she tells him.

"I can't. It's my natural state of being," Minato says, so matter-of-factly that it almost distracts from how utterly vain the line is.

"This is true." Sakura nods.

"Enough circle-jerking," Matatabi whined, letting her head fall to the side. Choumei comes up behind her sister and puts a hand on her head, and Matatabi's form flickers out just enough to shift, to give herself cat ears that Choumei delightedly starts scratching at. The entire process takes perhaps half a second. "Give me my brothers back."

"If you want to test the memories on someone who is currently fairly weak and not a threat, but also not one of your own, there is an option," Gyuuki speaks up. "She should still be in the village."

"But would she say yes?" Hashirama asks. "I mean, assuming we're talking about the same person."

"She might," Sakura says. "If we're talking about the same person, then she might see it as a tactical advantage that she needs to avoid returning to…"

"Ah." Hashirama winces. "Yes, that would do it."

"And who are you talking about?" Hiruzen asks, sounding a little tired of their bullshit, which was… fair.

"Uzumaki Karin," they answer in unison.

"She's a Kusa genin that was here for the exams," Sakura explains. "And I've got her memories in there, too."

"Why?"

Sakura shrugs and smiles. "Take back yours and maybe you'll find out."

"Haruno," he says, like he can actually command her.

"Sarutobi," she says back, mockingly.

"What the hell?"

Sakura turns slowly on the spot, to see Karin in the room. She's standing right next to Minato, who has his hand on her shoulder.

He shrugs. "You were taking too long."

o.o.o.o.o

Karin listens to the whole story, nodding and solemn, and listens to what little Karin feels comfortable with telling her about the future.

"Feel free to insult her," Gyuuki says when Sakura finishes. "Deathless is a violent bitch of a kunoichi—"

"Rude."

"—but she's not going to attack you if you call her out on it."

"Then I think you're fucking nuts," Karin says plainly. "But I also think you're telling the truth."

Hiruzen raises an eyebrow at that, glancing around the room.

"Future best sensor on the continent? I'd be surprised if you didn't know how to play lie detector by this point."

"Hilarious," Karin says, shifting uncomfortably. "Can we get on with this?"

"Wait, is that a yes to the memory transfer?"

"Just do it."

Sakura picks up the memory matrix, trying not to show her surprise at Karin's easy acquiescence. She expected the girl to need more convincing, but…

Well. She won't question it.

The memory matrix pulses a bright gold before it sinks into the skin of Karin's forehead.

Her eyes flutter shut for a moment, and she sways on her feet.

"Karin?" Sakura asks.

It's all she manages, because gold chains fly out of Karin's back and wrap around Sakura's body, tightening to the point of discomfort, if not quite pain. The chains are smaller than Sakura's used to seeing her friend make, but they're most certainly present.

Karin still has one hand stretched out at Sakura, seemingly to aid in directing the chains. She raises her head slowly, and her eyes take even longer to open up.

"…well, well, well," she drawls, head falling bonelessly to the side. "Isn't this interesting?"

"I'd think so," Sakura breathes out.

"Huh. It actually worked." Karin looks down at her own arms and hands, turning them over in the light. "That's… new."

"New?"

"Well, old, but forgive me for being a little unnerved by the lack of most of my scars after having spent more than one lifetime with them as one of my defining features."

"…put me down, Karin."

She snorts derisively, but the chains slip away from Sakura and slide into Karin's back again. "I feel so small. And yet it feels right."

"Yeah?"

"Well, I remember five minutes ago as both a twelve-year-old and as a dead woman, so yeah. It feels like both, Sa-ku-ra."

"Interesting."

"Innit, though?" Sakura leans forward and ruffles Karin's hair, getting her hand smacked away for her troubles. She turns to Hiruzen with a grin. "Well? Trust me to play god for a bit and give you back memories you never should have had in the first place?"

"Hardly," he says, sounding like the old, tired man that he is. "But with the results I've already seen and my dead comrades telling me to do this… it seems I haven't much of a choice."

"That doesn't sound like something a responsible leader would do," Sakura comments.

"Just do it, Haruno."

o.o.o.o.o

Hiruzen's attitude doesn't change very much, even with the memory return. Sakura almost feels disappointed, but… well, he's always been the sanest of the bunch.

o.o.o.o.o

 **A/N: Now, the bijuu obviously aren't human, and thus don't have a real race or ethnicity (at least, not a solid, permanent one), but their human forms do tend to be visibly of one race or another, though it's impossible to pinpoint an exact country since appearances can be fairly similar across countries if one disregards inhuman traits like their eye/hair color and Shukaku being literally made of sand. So I think I'll just jot down the vague real-world equivalents here:**

 **Shukaku - Middle Eastern**  
 **Matatabi - Latina**  
 **Isobu - White**  
 **Son Goku - Pacific Islander**  
 **Kokuou - East Asian**  
 **Saiken - Indigenous peoples of Canada**  
 **Choumei - South Asian/Indian Subcontinent**  
 **Gyuuki - Black**  
 **Kurama - Caribbean/Afro-Latino**

 **Some of you have probably noticed that I kept some of these groups fairly non-specific. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of ethnic groups in East Asia, twenty countries (and six dependent territories) in Latin America, multiple nations within the First Nations and Inuit, and so on. This is because, as mentioned above, the bijuu do not choose a specific country from the real world (especially since our countries don't even exist in the Naruto universe) on which to base their background, such as it is, but choose an appearance that they personally like; rather than attempting to mimic a specific ethnicity, they take on a form with varying elements of a more general group.**


End file.
